Not Every Demon is a Fallen Angel
by Birdhouse in your Soul
Summary: Let me never know the truth. Let not those demons rise, for they will be all that remains. I feel it... the omniverse exists within me. Humankind, behold your creators. Behold your destroyers. Sequel to Indisposition. Nightmare centric.
1. Prologue : Prince Without a Kingdom

**A/N:** Yeah, I always tell myself not to do sequels like this, and somehow it always ends up happening.

Go figure.

This one will have a considerably darker overtone than Indisposition did, because, let's face it, I like that sort of thing. Sue me. Actually, don't. I don't have any money. On that note, I'll go ahead and say that I don't own any actual SC characters used in this fic. All other characters, however, I _do_ own and am _fiercely _protective of. You steal, and I kick your arse to the moon and back... You know the drill. Also, reviews! They make me vereh happeh. Please and thank ye.

So, uh, if you haven't already, you should seriously consider reading Indisposition before you read this one, or else it isn't going to make a whole lot of sense. It isn't going to make a whole lot of sense ANYWAY, but you'll be considerably less confused if you read the predecessor.

* * *

**PROLOGUE : PRINCE WITHOUT A KINGDOM, TRUTH WITHOUT A CAUSE**

_Lead us to glory, son of Z'xolkuloth. _

_The world falls. _

_Lead us to glory, Khthon. _

_Unfeasibly alien, and yet at once wholly, unnervingly familiar. _

_Lead us to glory, Zuranthus. _

_Mine, these obsidian walls... and mine the realms beyond. _

_Lead us to glory, child of the dark... _

_The Abyss yawns wide... Claws sharpened on the dead. The Abyss yawns wide... Ensanguined fangs agleam. I feel it... the omniverse exists within me. Every fiber of my being ablaze with cosmic fire... Humankind, behold your creators. Behold your destroyers. _

_Lead us to glory... _

_See the might which you wield! You know who you are, do you not? Behold, the ghost of a king as yet unborn! He is the scourge, the cleansing fire, the purifying storm, the cataclysm given corporeal form. Who are you, my son? _

_Lead us to glory, let us rise in our splendor once more! Lead us to glory, Great Khthon!_


	2. Act I : Speak of the Devil

**ACT I : SPEAK OF THE DEVIL**

It was midday; the sun was high, and still a bone-freezing sort of cold hung in the air, stinging the lungs of the soldiers as they marched on forward to face the threats ahead.

Ismaire Uemytlach watched them move with a frown, hidden by the mask of her trademark muffler. One year ago, she'd fought the same beasts this army was defending against, and their unexpected reappearance had her concerned. With a frustrated sigh, she rubbed a gloved palm against her forehead and slowly started to move forward.

"You'll regret showing your ugly mugs in this world again, you sorry sons of bitches..."

Rekindling her old habits of travel and paid mercenary work had succeeded in making her feel marginally better until about a month ago, when these things had decided to stage a return. The last time she'd fought against them, she'd still been fighting alongside her best friend, but now...

She was wallowing again. And she_ hated _doing that. There was nothing, not anything she could have done. It had been Megumi's own conscious choice to go off and die, broken to peices by grief and a thorough unwillingness to go on any longer, though Ismaire had made every effort to convince her there was worth left in living. It hadn't accomplished anything. She'd done what she could.

Somehow, it hadn't been enough. And she still blamed herself for that fact.

Still, with a scowl, she clenched her jaw and marched on forward. Nothing decapitating a few of these hideous monsters couldn't solve.

However, on her way down, she was met with Cassius Thaeddus, the man she was currently working for. It had become obvious quite quickly that he'd taken a liking to her; and, though she wouldn't admit it, in the few months she'd been here, she had started to return the sentiment. He was pleasant enough company, and, though this she _never _would have admitted, relatively handsome, in a blonde and broad-shouldered sort of way.

He gave his usual boyish smile at seeing her, and in return she managed a civil nod.

"You've been different since these monsters showed up. I couldn't help but notice." He had long since done away with frivolous greetings, as Ismaire had found she preferred.

"Your _entire kingdom_ has been different, understandably so, as we are fighting monsters that look as if they've come straight from hell," she replied, with a bit of an edge of annoyance in her voice.

"Well, not in the same way. Everyone else has been frightened of these things. You... haven't."

"Fear's not a luxury you can afford in battle. I, unlike the rest of your soldiers, realize that."

Cassius frowned slightly. "It's as if you've seen these monsters before."

Ismaire glanced at him. In truth, she had. And the reminders they had brought along with them as they stormed onto the ice-covered battlefields of the kingdom of Terreglace were what had put her in the "different" state Cassius was referring to.

But she would not open that part of her heart to him yet.

"As previously stated, I don't see the point in being afraid of them," she finally answered, expertly deflecting his earlier question. "Now, that said, I really should get back to killing them, which is the job you're paying me for."

Clearly dissatisfied with how his inquiry had been answered but aware he would receive nothing better, Cassius nodded and slowly started off in the other direction as Ismaire continued to trudge down the hill.

She determinedly returned to her decision to take out her overall feelings of discontentment on the opposing beasts.

There was a gathering ahead, though. The soldiers had broken their ranks, moved to get a closer look at something half hidden in a crevasse of the towering glacier. She craned her neck. What were they looking at?

A split second, and she got a glimpse before someone else moved to block her view. She blinked. The cold was getting to her. She was seeing things.

Decidedly, she turned and walked forward again, though she couldn't get it out of her head. No, she had to be seeing things. There could be no such irony, that was too cruel, there was no possible way anything so horribly, punishingly ironic could be possible...

It was another monster.

It was a doppelganger.

And if that was true, why had there been recognition there?

It was as if she couldn't control when she walked by, raised her head, turned, stopped dead in her tracks -

_No, such cruelty was possible from the universe._

Though little was the same, the creature standing there in her line of sight was, without a doubt, Nightmare, who was most assuredly supposed to be dead and gone.

It was obvious that someone had attempted to make him look presentable, but by his still disheveled appearance, it was clear their efforts had been met with a fair amount of resistance. His bloodred hair had always been jaggedly cut and badly unkempt, but now it almost looked as though he'd gone out of his way to put it into such disarray. Even beneath the heavy rune-patterned coat he'd been dressed in, it was noticeable that he had thinned out - he must have been only skin and bones by now. One firelight orange eye remained. The other was now an iris of piercing white-blue surrounded by black where it should have been white, and both held a disturbingly feral quality that had never been there before.

_No. This is beyond any horrible jest any higher being could possibly muster._

Why was he here? Why had he somehow managed to come back, _after _he'd died and left Megumi with nothing to live for and no life to live?

He'd turned to look at Ismaire by this point, staring as though he couldn't place where he'd seen her before, and when he'd figured it out, further contempt joined the animalistic fury in his eyes.

"You... I remember you..." His voice came weakened, as though he'd gone too long without using it.

Ismaire glared. "Yes, hello, _Nightmare_." She'd taken to calling him "Clunky" before, but she was in no mood for that now.

"Hmph... Wasn't looking for you, but... Not surprising you're here." He stood and looked around. The surrounding soldiers, convinced he wasn't a threat, had moved on. "You might be able to help me find what I _am_ looking for, though."

_Damn it._ "She's not here, Nightmare."

"I figured that out already," he snapped, a deadly gleam in his eyes.

"Well, I don't know where she is." Not the truth, but not necessarily a lie.

When he stepped out of the shadow cast by the glacier, and she noticed something else - wings. Bony and mangled, leathery, with veins of blue running through them. They were torn and scarred, as if something had tried to rip them off. Somehow she had a feeling that something was Nightmare himself.

"Well, I can find her on my own, then."

_You stupid fuck, she's gone._ "I don't think you will."

"Your opinion fails to matter to me, just like it always has." He started climbing up the rough side of the ice.

Ismaire didn't say anything as he hopped up and over the top of the ledge and was gone. She hadn't had the heart to tell him the truth.

And she hadn't had the heart to kill him and spare him the truth, either.


	3. Act II : Remnants of the Broken

**ACT II : REMNANTS OF THE BROKEN **

Madness had opened the doors to the dead and living alike.

_You always did manage to find a way out of it, but now..._

_I left that place for the glory of godhood. But it was my family I was leaving, I suppose... And I may have been what helped get you here._

_You never knew what it would mean, and I could see how badly its toll was exacted. I blamed myself. You did not._

_And running from it, you thought that would make it go away? Some pains are inescapable, but you bear their weight and move on. I thought I had taught you that..._

_You weren't heartless, though, like I was. You couldn't possibly be given the luxury of looking on without caring... You never wanted the glory badly enough. Though it catches up to all of us eventually. Even me, when your mother..._

_Though I suppose you are just like our father in the end, aren't you? He ran from us to godhood, and you, little sister, ran from godhood to the oblivion of madness and solitude. You can't face anything else because there's nothing else to face, not without its inevitable loss._

_And I don't suppose you were planning to come back any time soon, eh? You've left me out of work and out friendless again. It's so hard to find people who are willing to put up with my demeanor, you know._

_There's nothing left now... Not even you. Not to them. Not to me..._

The weak light of dawn pervaded the the rooms of castle Ostreinsburg, though, like always, it did not contribute to any feeling of warmth.

The snow was falling again, leaving the trees in the forest flocked with it and the fields outside blank white and devoid of any signs of life or activity.

_Almost like the world's erasing itself... Just like you..._

Jade-green eyes scanned the landscape from a window far above, hopeless indifference in their expression. How long it had been, she had no idea. Time had ceased to have any meaning, and only the sun's monotonous rise and fall gave any indication of its passage.

Being here lessened the pain, somewhat. It was knowing he had been here all that time, it was that this was where they had first met, that somehow made this the sanctuary from all else, a place she could run to to escape all else...

_All but yourself, and the madness you've invited in._

Megumi turned from the window with the barest sigh. Despite all this, she could not be allowed the bliss of forgetting all that had happened, nor was she hard-hearted enough to enjoy living as such a recluse.

But she had lost too much already. She could allow herself to connect to nothing else, the pain of its loss was too great.

Yet something had kept her from completely severing her ties to the world. She had come so close so many times, so many times everything had been too much to bear and she had been ready to die, but something always led her away. And, as of late, she had come to believe it was the voices that had begun to speak to her through her ever-increasing delusions. She knew they were just that - delusions - but they were comfort and company enough in her isolation here.

And so they spoke. Her father, who had governed over the kingdom of Sylva and the Element Wind before her. He'd abandoned his son, wife, and then unborn daughter for the glory of his reign as a king and a demigod. Her brother Cullyn, who had raised her after the death of their mother. Arion, the previous lord of the Element Earth, who had watched and mentored her from the beginning of her reign as an Elemental. She'd seen him as something like a father in the time she knew him... She'd even taken to calling him "Papa" before his death. Ismaire, ever the virago, constantly throwing out playful insults and feigned guilt-trips.

And, though few and far between, there would come the one she wished so badly not to hear, because she knew it was only a delusion, and she wanted more than anything for it not to be.

Nightmare.

It hadn't left her, it hadn't even lessened since she had come here. He was there in the memory of every waking moment, and so too in the unrestrained, abounding reminders that came with dreams.

_He was supposed to be the one thing I wouldn't have to lose. The one person I'd have throughout the inescapable road of immortality, and in the end I lost even him._

But there was no use in putting further thought into it. He was gone.

And so, she once again walked back down the hallway, listening to the eerie echo of her own footsteps against the castle's cold stone walls. When the voices didn't speak, the silence made her almost uneasy. But she decided she may as well take some enjoyment from it now, because soon the voices would be all she was hearing.

She eventually reached the main hall, forcing open the massive stone doors with some difficulty. The snow was piling up around the castle walls, like a beast slowly attempting to swallow the structure whole.

The cold entered quickly, rushing through the now open doors and quickly overpowering the heat of the blaze in the hall's massive fireplace. Frowning, she closed them again. She'd had enough of the stinging numbness of the cold. She slowly made her way back to the fire.

She sat, watching the blaze consume the fuel at the bottom of the pit it had been placed in. A raging beast, trapped only where it had sustenance. He'd been like that, once. And his eyes had been so like firelight...

She, like always, wasn't aware of how much time she had spent there before she heard something move against the thick, heavy wood of the castle doors. She stood, turning. What could possibly have made its way out here, what would seek entrance? Rays of light pierced through the dimness of the hall as the doors slowly opened, and the fire wavered as the gust from outside reached it. A figure took a hesitant step in.

"...Megumi...?"

Everything came to a halt. Were her delusions spreading past simply hearing voices?

No... Somehow, she knew this was not a product of her broken psyche, this voice was so much more substantial than the half imagined ones she so often heard.

And suddenly, she knew those voices would not return, though they had tried once more to speak, she had lost awareness of everything else.

The cold aching blackness that had been interposed between then and now might have been a year or a second, not that it mattered now. For it was over, and she had come to life again.


	4. Act III : Scars and Sickness

**ACT III : SCARS AND SICKNESS**

And as the longing ache that had so long plagued her finally receded, she walked forward. She couldn't feel the cold that was rushing in through the open door, because there was only one thing that mattered now and it was _him_.

"Nightmare?"

He stepped in the door, carefully pulling it closed behind him. "...Yes. I was... looking for you."

She broke into a run, stopping as she pulled him into an embrace, which he slowly returned. She clung to him as if she feared he would vanish if she didn't. Oh, how long she'd wished for this.

"Oh, _Nightmare,_ I thought I wouldn't ever see you again... How did...?" She pulled back enough to look at him, noting the change to his right eye but not devoting any thought to it. It didn't matter now, nothing really did. She had him back.

He shook his head. "I... would have come sooner but I had to try and get rid of..." He trailed off, and Megumi noticed something move behind his back. Wings.

She leaned over to look at them. The bones were quite obviously broken, and all over there were gaping, festering tears. In this state, they were useless.

Concerned, she reached out to touch one, and he flinched. "...What happened?"

He frowned. "I tried to get them off. They weren't there before, I knew you wouldn't..."

"Nightmare." She cut him off. "It doesn't matter. I don't care if you came with a pair of wings you didn't have before, at this point it wouldn't matter if you'd grown an extra head. You're back now, and that's all that matters."

He nodded slowly, pulling closer again. "I missed you..."

"And I missed you." She rested her head against his chest, smiling for the first time in so long. "How did you come back, though?"

He stiffened and shifted uncomfortably. "...I...ended up somewhere they called Lemuria... And they knew me somehow, called me Khthon."

"Lemuria?" Megumi vaguely recognized the name. She'd heard it before in the legends of Azoth's realm, Lux Lucis Obscurum.

He didn't elaborate further. There was a glint of pain deep in his eyes, and something else, dark and unrecognizable. "I found a Rift... It opened somewhere else, all covered in ice and snow..." He paused, as if trying to remember something important. Then, with a hint of disdain, "Ismaire was there."

"She was?" Megumi frowned slightly. She'd left her closest friend with the impression that she was leaving to die. Ismaire had likely thought her dead for a long time. She thought of leaving to find her, but that could come later. "Did she... tell you where I was?"

Nightmare shook his head. "She claimed not to know. I was going to go straight on to Sylva, but I passed through here, just to see."

She smiled again, but this time it did not come as easily. "I'm glad you did." Now that the blinding euphoria was wearing off, she could see that he had been through something torturous in the time he'd spent in the place beyond death. It was clear in the fearful paranoia always lingering in his eyes beneath everything else, he was thin and bony and wasting away to nothing, and the affliction that plagued him had clearly left him changed.

But that, as of now, was a minor complication; certainly nothing compared to the joy of having him back.

"What were you doing here, in any case?" he asked after a long pause, clearly as happy as she was even through whatever sickness of the mind was tormenting him.

"I couldn't stay there," she said quietly. "Not when I knew I would just have to lose anyone I was close to. Losing you was more than I could bear. I came here just to... to be alone."

"You never seemed much like the sort of person who would enjoy that, though," he whispered back.

"I didn't." She stopped, again caught up in her own happiness. If she could never be given anything else, he was all she needed.

"Well, we won't have to be, not again."

At that she kissed him, pulling back smiling again. "No. We won't."

She finally felt him relax a bit, but his shoulders still remained slightly tensed, and his eyes would dart away every so often, as if he'd caught something in his peripheral vision.

Further uneasiness started to creep up on her joyous oblivion. He was damaged, so deeply and obviously. That was something she couldn't ignore.

"Nightmare," she said quietly, after a moment of thought, causing him to return his attention to her, "I don't know what happened to you, but... It's worrying me." He looked taken aback at this, afraid of what she would say next. She gave a slight smile she hoped was reassuring and finished, "I know you're the type to march on through anything, even if it ends up hurting you more. And I _will not let you _do that now. I do not plan on having to lose you again."

With somewhat ashamed acceptance of the statement, he slowly nodded.

Megumi finally took a step back from him, her heart sinking when she saw how loosely the thick black overcoat he wore was draped over him.

"You haven't been eating." It wasn't a question.

He flinched away as if she'd physically struck him, and she immediately regretted even the slight severity she had spoken with. "I- ate when I could. But I couldn't, not often. The ones who reside there have other ways of gaining sustenance. I had to find the winged monsters when I could, they were all that was edible, really."

Megumi thought of the gargoyle-like creatures they had once fought against together. That sinewy, rough muscle, oozing with black blood the consistency of molasses. No wonder he had come back so skeletal.

"There isn't anything here, so I've had to hunt as well." It was almost like it had been when she was young - a feral child running through the woods coming back every sunset carrying a full game bag home to an adoptive big sister who would just scold her for not behaving more like a proper young lady, and subsequently cook whatever was brought home over the fire for that night's meal. "It will be better than what you've had, though."

"Anything is better. Everything is better, now that I'm back with you."

She took his hand, nodding in agreement.

They were together again, the wound of separation that had been dealt to them had been healed. But as with any wound deep enough, it had left its scar.

They sat in silence before the roaring fire in the main hall as Megumi worked at cooking a bit of meat from a rabbit - not much, because she remembered a girl from her home village who'd gotten lost in the nearby forests and went two weeks with nothing to eat. After they found her, she'd eaten so much that her starved body couldn't take it - and she died two days later. Taking this into account, she knew Nightmare's recovery would have to be slow and gradual.

He ate slowly, finishing with bits still leftover that he didn't have the stomach for. Megumi tossed what was left into the fire and moved in closer to him again.

"I missed you so much," she whispered. "I... I never knew anything could hurt that badly... But I've never loved anyone as much as I love you."

"I wouldn't have even made it to that place in order to escape if it hadn't been for you... You were the reason for my existence, and while you were still here, I had reason to be too."

She curled up against him, and he put his arms around her. Happier than she'd thought she could ever be again, she soon fell asleep there, to the first peaceful, dreamless sleep she'd had since a piece of her soul had been torn away.


	5. Act IV : Truth and Testament

**ACT IV : TRUTH AND TESTAMENT**

Ismaire was leaving the kingdom of Terreglace.

She had another mission now, and it was one she hoped to accomplish quickly. She sighed at the thought of the pay she was leaving behind, but it probably wasn't worth it to come back, this place was just too goddamned freezing for her tastes anyway.

So she took what she had: her scythe, what money she had earned, and a small rucksack of supplies, and she left for the port at the edge of the ice-island.

She'd find a job somewhere else once she'd done what needed to be done. Somewhere that wasn't under attack by those monsters and the recollections they invoked.

Of course, leaving would not be that simple, though.

"Where are you headed off to?"

Ismaire suppressed a grumble of frustration. "I have important business to attend to, Cassius."

"Oh? As your employer, perhaps you'd consider telling me what?" He walked up so that he was in her line of sight.

"You're not my employer anymore, Cassius, I'm leaving. Probably not coming back, it's far too cold here. I prefer work in the desert."

He frowned. "Mm. I see. Still, I would like to know, just out of curiosity."

Ismaire let out an exasperated sigh. "You're like a nosy child, you know that? I'm going to assume you won't stop asking until I explain, will you?"

"Well, you must have a good reason."

Realizing he would not cease pestering her until she answered, Ismaire had a seat on a rock a few feet away. Besides, what would the harm in just telling him be? "Fine, I'll explain it to you. You may remember the rumors of the Azure Knight circulating until a few months ago?"

"Of course."

"Well, he came here. And I'm leaving to track him down and kill him."

There was a hint of doubt in his expression. "That all?"

"Yes, Cassius."

He raised an eyebrow. "I get the feeling you're telling the truth, but it isn't the whole story, is it?"

"You didn't ask for the whole story, you simply asked for the reason I was leaving. Which I gave you."

Cassius smirked. "I want to know the reason behind _that_ reason."

"Because he's a bloodthirsty, debauched serial killer who runs about murdering anyone who crosses his path, and that doesn't sit well with me."

"Ah, see, _that_ time you _were_ lying."

She glared at him. Had she really dropped her guard that much around him? She had to remind herself not to make friends so easily in the future. "Alright. Admittedly, that was a in part a lie."

"Are you planning on telling me the rest of the truth, then?"

She looked up at him. He was nagging her with this because he wanted to know her better, he wanted to be able to get closer to her. She weighed the outcomes. Perhaps allowing him to would not be such a bad thing.

"Alright, Cassius. I give. I'll tell you the whole story."

Satisfied, he sat down opposite her, listening intently as she told him the truth.

"A little more than a year ago, I was working as a mercenary for the kingdom of Sylva. The queen there, the Wind Elemental, Megumi, was... the closest friend I've ever had, really. I'd practically been living there for a few years. I'd been away on a smaller job when I returned to find out she'd hired the Azure Knight to fight with her forces in the small war that was going on. Obviously, I didn't approve of this, but she told me it was an order from the god she served, Azoth. Clu- Nightmare was supposed to be the one to defeat Lucifurius, the being housed within Soul Edge, which just so happened to be the thing controlling his every action until he made the decision to defy it."

"You mean to say he was innocent in everything he did?" Cassius asked.

"Not innocent," Ismaire stated. "He certainly did have a fair bit of immorality about him, even if it was because of outside influences. So you can imagine how livid I was when I found out that Megumi had started to take a liking to him, even more so upon finding out the feeling was mutual. But... I don't know, as time went on, I could see it was genuine, and that he'd changed because of it. They really did love eachother. I think... when he went to fight Lucifurius, it wasn't just for his own freedom but because he wanted to protect her too. And he did what he said he would, he defeated Lucifurius, but... not before being dragged down with him."

Cassius waited for her to continue.

"As you can imagine, Megumi didn't handle it well. Being immortal, and already having lost so many people who were close to her, losing him was the last straw. She went back to Sylva and we managed to keep her there for a month. Then one day... She just left. She never told me where she was going, but I already knew. She was leaving to die."

There was a long passage of silence. Cassius shifted. "I'm sorry."

Ismaire shook her head. "And two weeks ago, Nightmare showed up here. I don't know how. But he was looking for her. And there was something very wrong with him, other than being alive when he was supposed to be dead. He was quite obviously the farthest thing from lucid. But he also looked so... like he was in pain. And ever since he left, I've thought and thought over it, and I know one thing for certain - he's dangerous. And he'll only get more so when he finds out that she's..." She trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence.

"Sounds to me like pity may be a factor in this too."

"No, it isn't," she muttered. "I said he's dangerous like he is. That's why I have to kill him."

Cassius gave her a doubtful look.

"Alright," she finally gave in, throwing up her hands, "So I do feel slightly sorry for him that he went through the trouble of coming back and the one he came back for isn't here. But I'm not overlooking the threat he poses, either."

Cassius finally stood. "Well, I don't suppose you'd consider letting me come with you, then?"

she too stood up and started to walk off. "What about your kingdom?"

"They'll cope fine without me. Besides, it sounds like you could use help in this."

She gave the slightest roll of her eyes. "Fine, Cassius... You can come with me, but only until it's been done. Then I expect you to come back here while I head off to the desert to find a job there and hopefully work on moving past all this."

"Fair enough."

They walked in silence the rest of the mile to the port, Ismaire already regretting have agreed to allow Cassius to come with her. This was something she had planned to do alone...

But if he was that insistent, there was nothing she could do.


	6. Act V : Let Not Sleeping Demons Lie

**ACT V : LET NOT SLEEPING DEMONS LIE**

_We march to war._

_This ebon beast shall bloody its claws._

_Assemble the legions! Forward the iron phalynx!_

_Out victory here is assured..._

* * *

Ismaire sat, scowling, on the ice-glazed deck of the cargo ship they had hitched a ride on. She was angry. She was tired. She missed the desert. She wished Cassius wasn't following her.

She needed to stop brooding so much, she decided.

So, she went to the deck's edge and looked out over the water. Chunks of ice floated everywhere, and a thick fog had settled in, but she could make out a thin line in the distance. Land. They were almost there.

Of course, it was another four day's walk from port to Sylva, and then another two days from there to Ostreinsburg, where she assumed Nightmare had ended up. It was, after all, his past home.

A year earlier, this was a task she would have carried out without hesitation, maybe even with enjoyment of it. But the simple fact of the matter was that she could no longer view Nightmare as the heartless bastard of her original impressions. Now, she'd come to know him as more of an irksome, ill-behaved child befallen by unfortunate guidance and bad luck time and time again. He was not truly heartless, not at his core, he had simply had all the wrong influences. Until he'd met Megumi. But now...

She hoped that maybe, when she found him, he wouldn't know. She still may not have had much to like about him, but she at least didn't wish misery on him. She'd spare him that, if she could.

That, and, despite it not being entirely his fault, he was once again a dangerous man who could not be allowed to roam free.

* * *

They arrived at the edge of northern Germany a few hours later, and Ismaire got off without making sure Cassius followed. If he wanted that badly to follow her, he could damn well make sure he kept up on his own. He'd realized this almost too late and was running to catch up to her now.

"So... Where exactly are we going?"

She glanced over at him. "Ostreinsburg. I'd rather not have to go to Sylva if I don't have to; besides, even if he did go there, Nightmare most likely isn't there now. He will have realized rather quickly that she isn't there and moved on." She continued on forward through the snow. At least it was marginally warmer here. "He once used Ostreinsburg as a base of operations. It's a familiar place to him. And... I think Megumi may have gone there." She fell silent as she trudged onward.

Cassius still followed, keeping up the pace now. "Well, you obviously aren't planning to take your time."

"And you obviously know how to state the obvious, Cassius."

He sighed but said nothing else as they walked on.

It had been afternoon when they reached land, and now the sun was setting, but still Ismaire gave no indication of stopping any time soon. The sooner she could get this over with... The sooner she'd be back to her home in the desert, and the sooner all this would be far behind her.

However, as they continued on through the forests, pathway lit by the dim beams of moonlight that reached through the trees, Ismaire noticed something up ahead that caused her to finally slow her incessant pace.

"Are you _finally_ slowing down?" an exhausted Cassius asked as he drew to a halt behind her. "I don't know _where_ your reserves of energy come from, and I can't-"

"_Hush_." She cut him off. "Look, up there."

Up ahead, now turned towards them, were two cloaked figures, eerily blending in with the blackness the night had provided. Ismaire took another step forward, and they shifted, as if awaiting her approach. Slowly, she walked over, Cassius following.

"Who are you?" she asked, ready to fight if such was needed. Neither of them seemed hostile, but there was no such thing as being too careful. "Awfully late for a stroll, don't you think?"

"You _hardly_ seem one able to judge us on that point," the first, a man from the sound of his voice, answered in a tone that was noticeably contemptuous.

"Well, I'm not trying to hide myself, like you two obviously are," she pointed out. "So, who are you, and what are you doing out here?"

Both hesitated; clearly, they had not prepared a lie.

"Wait," said the second, turning slightly. "Tebryn, I believe these are the ones we were informed about."

The first, now identified as Tebryn, looked over at Ismaire and Cassius, scrutinizing them to confirm what his companion had stated. "Thule and the Novuegreoros? Then perhaps they can be of assistance in our search for our honored Khthon."

"What and what?" Ismaire asked, raising an eyebrow. "Make some sense when you speak."

"Gladly." The second stepped forward. "I am Adramellach, this is Tebryn. We've come from Khanda Ura, the capitol of Hatheg-Kla, in search of the Khthon. Though you can't be expected to know him by his title. You knew him as Nightmare."

_Oh, how absolutely, completely, and unreservedly _wonderful.

"Why are you looking for him?" she asked, suppressing the urge to grumble a stream of vulgarities.

"We are his servants," Tebryn answered. "Our kind are known as Shadrans." He removed his hood, and Adramellach did the same.

Ismaire could not help but stare; they both had night-black skin, long, pointed ears like those of an elf, but perhaps the most striking thing about them was their lack of any facial features, save for eyes, devoid of an iris or pupil. Adramellach's were bright, piercing green, Tebryn's were gold. Neither had a mouth, or a nose. She wondered how they spoke. Both had silvery-white hair, but Adramellach's was cropped short, while Tebryn's fell to the middle of his back.

"I am the Praesidium, the Khthon's right-hand-man," Tebryn stated. "Adramellach is his highest general. He disappeared from Khanda Ura one month ago; we tracked him to this world."

"You knew him before, did you not?" Adramellach asked. "Perhaps you could help us find him."

Ismaire sighed. She could not avoid them; they were headed to the same place. "Yes, I... suppose I could be of some help to you."

"Excellent. Our first destination is Ostreinsburg, which we believe to be his most likely location."

And so, with a loose alliance now established, the four of them set off. Ismaire scowled fiercely. Of course, she'd _had_ to meet up with Nightmare's "servants". Of course, knowing her luck, _they_ were the ones who were to accompany her on her mission to kill him.

Ismaire glanced back at Cassius, who looked at her helplessly. Clearly, he wouldn't be any use in getting her out of this.

At least she knew for sure that when all was said and done, she'd have made herself two new enemies.


	7. Act VI : Resolve and Reunion

**ACT VI : RESOLVE AND REUNION**

On the fourth day of their journey, castle Ostreinsburg finally came into view in the distance.

Further time spent on the trek with their newly added companions did little to improve Ismaire's opinion of them. Tebryn was, as far as she was concerned, a fool, blindly devoted to Nightmare like an idiot dog to its master. He never missed an opportunity to praise Nightmare, and to Ismaire, this grew tiring quickly, especially with the knowledge that she'd be killing him.

Adramellach was aloof and indifferent, even at times rather lazy. He lacked the fierce loyalty Tebryn had, but clearly possessed at least a small amount of admiration for Nightmare. He didn't speak much unless first spoken to, and when asked a question he would either offer up a simple, dispassionate response or an at times irritatingly sardonic one.

But despite their unintimidating personalities, one day, when they'd encountered a group of bandits, Ismaire had been faced with an exhibition of their combative abilities. They were powerful.

She steeled herself as they continued on. She was not looking forward to making enemies of Tebryn and Adramellach.

Perhaps now it wasn't such a bad thing that she'd allowed Cassius to come with her. She'd need his help, when the time for the fight came.

As they neared the castle, she saw a trail of footprints, almost hidden by the layer of snow that had fallen over them. They were uneven, zig-zagging. As if their owner had tripped and staggered all the way up to the castle.

_He's here, that's for sure._

She approached the heavy wooden doors, Tebryn, Adramellach, and Cassius slowing to a stop behind her.

_Enough stalling. Let's get this over with._

She pushed open the doors and stepped in. It was eerily quiet inside. Her footsteps echoed through the hall as she moved forward.

Had he already left?

She stopped, frowning. She certainly wasn't looking forward to starting off on a wild goose chase all over again. But as she stood listening to the deafening silence, she heard something.

It was faint, but it was there.

A voice.

Probably Nightmare, though it was hard to discern, far away and muffled by distance and stone walls. She waited as Cassius closed the door. He'd hear that. She listened. It was silent again. Then, again, she heard him speak.

But as she stood, waiting, listening, she could have sworn there was another voice...

No, she was imagining things. She was straining just to hear the one voice, it was understandable that she might think there was another.

Silence replaced the faint sound of his voice again, then, footseteps sounded. She tensed, one hand tightly gripping her scythe behind her back. She had to make this quick.

Then, down the stairs and around the corner, he was there. He'd obviously started taking better care of himself; his face was still gaunt, but he was no longer the skeleton he'd been when she seen him before, and the ragged wounds on his wings looked like they were starting to heal. But blatant madness still gleamed in his eyes. When he saw her, he frowned.

"_You again_...You _followed _me here? As if you haven't caused me enough trouble..." He looked past her, to Tebryn and Adramellach. "And _they_ came with you?"

Tebryn bowed his head. "Greetings, Khthon."

Nightmare watched him, looking irritated. "_I am not _going back, Tebryn."

"with all due respect, Khthon, there are matters that require your attention," Adramellach stated.

This had gone on long enough. Ismaire stepped forward. "That aside, Nightmare, I'm here for a different reason... Allow me to state in advance that I really am sorry."

As confusion overtook Nightmare's annoyed expression, Tebryn realized what she planned to do, drew the glistening black scimitar at his belt, and lunged.

In an instant Cassius caught him with the pole of his weapon, a short, double-bladed spear, and held him there. Adramellach's hands flew to the obsidian-accented hand axes at his own belt.

Time seemed to stand still as each one waited for the other to make a move.

Finally, with a grumble of frustration, Ismaire loosened her grip and let the scythe drop from her hand. "Oh, this is ridiculous. Nightmare, you..."

But she was interrupted by another voice. "...Ismaire?"

In disbelief, she slowly turned to the bottom of the stairs.

"_Megumi?_"

Megumi walked over. "What are you doing here?"

Ismaire stared, utterly dumbfounded. At a total loss for words.

"What... what are _you _doing here? Megumi, I thought you..."

Megumi looked away sheepishly. "I... I know what you thought. I know what I led you to believe."

Ismaire slowly shook her head. "Megumi... I thought... I _knew_... that you were leaving to commit _suicide_! And you never did, and you've been here this whole time? You could have come back, at least..."

"Ismaire..." She looked down. "Death was my original intention. But I just... I went to so many times, and just couldn't do it... But I couldn't go back, either. It was just too much, seeing so many people I knew I would have to lose."

Ismaire might have been more frustrated, but the truth of the matter was, she was happy to know her best friend was not dead. She sighed. "Don't take it the wrong way. I'm glad you're here."

"Well, I'm happy to see you too, but you still haven't told me why you're here," Megumi stated.

Ismaire glanced at Nightmare. He'd figured it out by this point, and the look in his eyes almost seemed to say _Go on, then,_ you _tell her._

She shifted. "I came here to kill Nightmare. But that was before I... before I knew you were still here," she added hurriedly.

Megumi seemed unaffected by the statement. She knew the reasoning behind it. "Well... That, fortunately, won't have to happen now, will it?"

_I hope not, Megumi._ She still wasn't entirely sure if Nightmare was sane enough to be trusted.

Megumi then turned to the rest of the group. "Cassius Thaeddus. I haven't seen you in a while."

Ismaire turned. "You know him?"

Cassius nodded. "Megumi and the Water Elemental, Malklith, were the ones who granted me with my gift for manipulating the sub-Element Ice."

"You never told me you had connections to the Elementals... Just that you knew who they were."

"Well, now you know."

Megumi looked at Tebryn and Adramellach. "Shadrans."

Nightmare glanced at her. "How do you...?"

"Arion... My adoptive father... Was a Shadran."

"Vetugaia Arion Raekyn?" Tebryn inquired. "Lady Aeolia, he was my uncle."

"Small world, isn't it?" Ismaire scoffed. "Or... multiple worlds in this case... Sounds like we've got one hell of a confusing situation on our hands. But we can worry about all this later. I think we're all in need of a rest right now."

"I didn't think I'd _ever _hear those words come out of your mouth," Cassius said incredulously.

Megumi smiled. "Good to see you haven't changed, Ismaire."

_Not me, Megumi, but one of us certainly has. _

* * *

They all sat in the main hall as the sun set, watching the fire burn down to the last cinders. Well, Tebryn was keeping a closer eye on Ismaire. After what she'd attempted earlier, he was never going to trust her.

Ismaire didn't care, though; she was used to being distrusted.

"What have you been doing all this time, Ismaire?" Megumi asked as she got comfortable next to Nightmare, looking over at her friend.

"Working for this lunatic," she answered, gesturing at Cassius. "I wanted to get out and try something different. Turned out that 'different' just meant 'colder than an icebox'."

"Not everywhere can be desert," Cassius pointed out to her with a roll of his eyes.

"And what about you? What were you up to, before Nightmare came and found you here?" Ismaire asked.

"Reliving my childhood, essentially. I'd forgotten what it was to live such an _unrefined _lifestyle," Megumi answered with a laugh.

"From what you told me, I'm amazed it was that girl Edyta and not a pack of wolves who raised you at that stage."

"I think most of my unruliness came from... my brother, actually. He was the one who taught me how to hunt and use a weapon, before..." Megumi went quiet. Time to change the subject.

"Well, I'm sure we can start thinking about heading back to Sylva after all this. Just like old times, eh?"

Megumi seemed to hesitate on that subject. She still wasn't quite ready to be fully integrated back into her old lifestyle, in contact with so many mortals. "Yes. I suppose."

Ismaire nodded. "And you, Clunky? These servants of yours seem to think you're shirking your responsibilities. Care to elaborate?"

Nightmare clenched his jaw and scowled. Megumi turned around to look at him, concerned. "My responsibilites were not a high priority of mine when I left," he stated.

Adramellach looked to Tebryn, unsure what to say. Tebryn had nothing to offer.

"Oh? Why's that?" Ismaire asked.

"I _never _asked for them," he hissed, but his voice shook. "I never asked for all that to be forced upon me."

Megumi took his hand in hers. She hadn't bothered to continue asking about what had been beyond his death, or how he'd gotten back, because every time she did he would simply shake his head, unwilling to give a response. Seemed he was finally planning to explain it.

"And what exactly are you talking about, Nightmare?" Ismaire asked quietly.

"Well, I'll tell you. Or even better - I can _show you_."

And suddenly, everyone in their circle found themselves in Nightmare's memories.


	8. Act VII : Tell You a Story

**ACT VII : TELL YOU A STORY**

_He's somewhere else now, in a misty forest surrounded by dead white trees and there are howls and screams and cries of pain everywhere as these monsters distort._

_He is dead. He understands that; though he resents the fact, he accepts it._

_And yet somehow, in the forests of Lemuria, he lives on._

_"You have come, child."_

_And he turns to place the voice that has spoken - it is a man with silver hair and sad, slate grey eyes in a tattered necromancer's robes._

_He remembers what he had been told by Lucifurius. This is Septimus Swain._

_He hasn't intentionally gone anywhere, he is dead. He wants to state as much, but the pain is still there; he cannot find his voice._

_"Lucifurius dragged you down to death with him, but you are now here, in Hatheg-Kla. You are destined to become the Khthon."_

_"What?" His voice rasps weakly when he finally manages to speak._

_"It was never your purpose to serve as a puppet. You are not truly the creation of Lucifurius, to serve as his puppet was never the reason you were born..."_

_It is another voice now, not that of Septimus. There is another man there now too - tall, with six gnarled horns like those of Lucifurius, two at the forehead, and two at each side of his head, just above the ears. His iridescent black hair, as it flows down his back, caught in the dim light, shows flashes of metallic yellow-green, deep blue, and violet, like the shell of a beetle. His eyes, dark crimson, are deep and knowing and haunting. Unsettling. And somehow familiar._

_More striking still are the wings on his back, bony and leathery with faintly luminescent veins of white-blue running through them to their middle bones, and from there to where they meet his back, they are covered in feathers, the same kaleidoscopic color of his hair._

_He does not recognize this man... unfeasibly alien and at once wholly, unnervingly familiar._

_He finds his voice again, and it has started to once more gain strength. "Who... who are you?"_

_"I am Z'xolkuloth," the man answers. "These are the forests of Lemuria, within the realm Hatheg-Kla. My dominion, the realm of darkness."_

_"You...? I thought..."_

_"That Lucifurius was the owner to that claim? He was, but only after stealing it from me... My brother has always been covetous of all that which I call my own... Even you, my son."_

_He stares uncomprehendingly. He is dead, and if that must be so, he wants to die. He does not want to be here, learning of a true lineage he never cared to know about in the first place._

_But it is no lie, and this man is his father._

_"We led him to believe he had created you... But he does not possess the ability to do so. I created you, my son. And you are here for a purpose. You are here to lead our people to glory once more... To become Khthon, ruler of darkness itself... and restore the honor of the Chthonian people. Come with me._

_And so, reluctantly, he follows, knowing not what else to do. Through the mists in the forests, they eventually come to a clearing, and a temple, covered in writhing tentacle-roots and inside he can hear the voices whispering, speaking their secrets and memories of all of them all the omniverse they all exist here -_

_"You must first learn, child."_

_He turns back to face the man he now knows is his true father, Z'xolkuloth. "Learn? What do I have to..."_

_And that is all he can say before he is engulfed by the memories of everything._

_The truth of everything that has ever existed in the unfathomable many dimensions of the omniverse comes slowly at first, but then_

everything everything everything he knows it all at once and it hurts and it's more pain than he could ever imagine every pain every thought every feeling of every sentient being ever to exist and it hurts and he wants to die make it end anything make it stop

_But Theoria, this keeper of everything, every memory, is a being, and all at once she is there_

and he knows now along with all of everything else that he is the child of Darkness and Memory

_Theoria is a being, and he sees her there, madness in her eyes that his own will soon mirror. And more memories come to his mind, and even through the pain he is able to realize_

that this being that tortures him with all this he wants it to stop but he looks on

_And he knows_

this is his mother

_And he breaks under it, the memories and the knowledge, the pain, the unparalleled agony, he snaps under all that he should have never been made to know, and just when he can stand it no longer_

he wants to die he begs let him die let him die let him die

_"Enough."_

_He falls, broken, in too much agony to move, to make even a sound indicative of the pain he is in, and remains, catatonic, though he is sharply aware of everything, the feeling of the cracked stone floor beneath him, and of the feeling of blood as it starts to run from the splitting skin on his back. He can see a faint reflection on the marble beneath him, his right eye, now an iris of white-blue surrounded by black with a dark pinprick of a pupil at its center._

_"You went too far."_

_He manages to raise his head and look up at Z'xolkuloth, looking down on him with something that could be pity. He can barely make out the form of Theoria behind him, the one who did this, who drove him to madness, broke him to pieces_

his mother

_His surroundings fade to shadows, and when they dissipate he is in the forest again, he can hear them all, all the voices there_

and wings, new and bloodied, tear from his back

and he is one of them

_Madness recedes just enough that he remembers - he remembers her, his life and soul, only purpose he was forced to abandon_

but this cannot stand

_And for days, then weeks, he tries to rid himself of his new wings; he bends them to angles they were never meant to know against the trees and they break, but they will not come off. He tears at them with his own claws, leaving them in shreds, but he cannot rid himself of them._

_And one day they find him here, the ones with black faces, they call him Khthon and he goes back to that place, Khanda Ura, they said, the obsidian citadel. He is the ghost of a king as yet unborn, a god, a prince in a kingdom he has no desire to call his own_

he knows of a rift that can take him back take him back to her

_He knows not exactly where, but he rules the kingdom well, for, despite his new plague of insanity, he is a brilliant tactician, they fight and win against threat after threat and more of his own men fall to him in his maddened, uncontrollable bouts of insane fury than do in battle against his enemies._

_He fights just long enough that he can find the Rift, and when he does he leaves without a thought for the people he leaves behind, because his purpose was left in the world he left behind after his death, and he returns to find her, intending never to look back.  
_

* * *

When the main hall of Ostreinsburg came back into focus, Nightmare stood away from the group, wings folded behind him, looking oddly placid for the moment.

"What... the hell was that?" Ismaire demanded, standing up and stomping over to him. "Look, Clunky, I don't appreciate you fucking with my mind-"

"_Imagine that_," he said quietly, cutting her off, "but with every memory of every being in many of the dimensions of the omniverse. It's quite a lot to learn in the space of a few short minutes."

The look in his eyes was... strange, for lack of a better word. Ismaire, before, had been one of the few people that Nightmare possessed some degree of fear towards, though it was usually so masked by hatred that he didn't realize he was afraid of her. But he would, most of the time, avoid having to fight her if he could.

Now, though... afraid was clearly the last thing he was. The look in his eyes was a challenge, and a fairly confident one at that. Ismaire did what she always did when faced with a challenge, sized him up, made a plan...

_I left my scythe across the room... I could run to get it, he'd chase me, but he's unarmed, save for those claws... And I'm faster than him, or I was, at least, he's probably stronger now than he was the last time I fought him-_

She stopped herself. No. She would avoid making an enemy of him for as long as she could. She instead resorted to attempting to diffuse the tension she'd created.

"Yes, well... I just... wasn't expecting that." She sighed heavily. "Sorry. Guess that was a lot of bullshit you had to go through."

Megumi stayed where she was, shaking her head. "Nightmare... she was..."

He stepped back over. "Theoria is my mother, yes."

She looked up at him. "But... h-how could she bring herself to do that to you? You're her son..."

Adramellach surprised the group by bluntly stating, "Well, it's a well known fact that that bitch doesn't have a maternal bone in her body, and she just sees her son as her own personal plaything."

Tebryn stared in shock at his coarseness, to which he reciprocated an unconcerned, "What?"

Nightmare scoffed in agreement. "I found out I wasn't the son of Lucifurius, only to then find out I was the son of an equally controlling and uncaring set of parents."

Megumi put an arm around him. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he said gently, shaking his head. "None of this was your fault."

"Well," Ismaire said after a pause, "sounds like our problems are just beginning. We're going to have to get moving, but that can wait, I think we could all use a good night's sleep."

The rest of the group agreed, and rather than take the time to split off into separate rooms they remained there, around the slowly dimming fireplace as if it was some sort of camp, with the resolution that they'd be leaving as soon as morning came.

* * *

***Pronunciation Guide**

Khthon - ka-TAHN  
Z'xolkuloth - zuh-WOLL-kul-oth  
Theoria - tey-OAR-ee-uh  
Khanda Ura - kahn-dah UR-rah (pronounced with a slight roll on the last "r")  
Lemuria - lay-MUYR-ee-uh  
Hatheg-Kla - HOTH-ag KLAH


	9. Act VIII :To the Cadence of the Mad Ones

**ACT VIII : TO THE CADENCE OF THE MAD ONES**

Ismaire was awake before the sun rose; the only light came from the dying embers in the fireplace.

Minutes passed and she gave up on going back to sleep. She stood and glanced around. Cassius was across the room, snoring quietly. Obviously he wasn't concerned with anything. almost stupid of him, she thought, to leave himself that vulnerable...

But she pushed the thought away. No one here was her enemy.

_Yet._

Adramellach was by the fireplace, as close as he could be to it without being in it. Tebryn was leaning against the stone wall, and Ismaire had a feeling that he wasn't really asleep, not being the devoted, vigilant sentinel he was, and certainly not now that he had every reason not to trust Ismaire. She looked to the side, almost jumping when she saw Nightmare across the room, sitting up, wings outstretched. The faintly luminescent veins running through them cast a slight glow on the stones beneath him. Megumi was still asleep next to him.

"So you can't sleep either?" Ismaire asked in a low voice.

"Never can," he replied simply, a tinge of annoyance lurking in his voice.

"Must get old."

"You get used to it. Nights always go on forever."

"Time to think, I suppose."

"Not enough. There's a lot to think about."

Ismiare remembered seeing through his memories, all the knowledge he'd forcibly been made the owner of. "I can imagine."

A long silence followed.

"So why was it you came here to kill me?" he finally asked.

"I answered that earlier. I didn't want you to have to deal with coming back and her not being here."

"Wrong." He glanced over. "You don't trust me."

"I don't," she readly admitted. "But when have I ever?"

"True."

"Look, Clunky. I don't know if it's really your fault. But you've never been a trustworthy person, and now that you're... Well, completely _batshit insane_, you're even less so."

He scoffed. "I'm touched by your sensitivity on the matter."

She returned the sardonic remark with a grim smile. "Good. I'm glad."

"Well, then, we know what to expect from eachother in the future."

"Absolutely. You make one wrong move and you lose your head. As has always been the agreement."

"Wrong move?"

"You know what I mean. I don't doubt that you love Megumi but you're not stable enough to be trusted-"

"That's one thing you can be assured will not happen. She's the only thing in any of these worlds I care about." The playful sarcasm had gone from his tone. "She will _always _be my first priority. _So no need to worry about that_."

That had been insulting to him, she realized now. After all, he'd been through hell and back for Megumi, he at least deserved some credit. She resolved to exercise more sensitivity in the future; even he deserved some respect.

"Alright." She would not argue with him further - her way of apologizing. "Fine. Just try not to give me any other reason to have to teach you another lesson."

Nightmare responded with only a faint scowl.

She sighed and walked off. She would wander around for a while; sleep was no longer an option.

This castle was the sort of place to give anyone chills - skeletons piled in corners, old, darkened bloodstains covering the walls, and everywhere was lingering the old, musty smell of death...

____

_Exactly the sort of place described by frightened children in their late-night campfire stories. Really, it's almost funny how stereotypical it is..._

* * *

She returned to the hall a while later when she noticed the faint line of orange starting to rim the horizon from a dingy window, knowing the others would be waking up soon.

Sure enough, Adramellach was sharpening his axes against a smooth black stone when she entered the room, Tebryn was adding more fuel to the fire, and Cassius was skinning something with a hunting knife. Megumi finished folding the last of the blankets before looking up.

"Good morning, Ismaire. I was wondering where you had gone."

"Out on a walk," Ismaire answered. "Couldn't sleep."

"Well, I was waiting to ask you if you still wanted to go to Sylva. I thought over it more and decided I would like to go back. But in any case, we can't stay here."

Ismaire shrugged and nodded. "Sure. But what about you, Clunky, haven't you got other things to do, what with being the ruler of an entire dimension and all?"

He glanced over, almost startled, as though he had only just noticed she was there. "...No. I'm in no hurry to go back. I'll stay with Megumi and deal with things as they come."

Adamellach gave an irritated sigh; their entire point in being here was to get Nightmare back to Hatheg-Kla. Tebryn looked at him sharply.

"The Khthon is entitled to doing anything he wishes, Adramellach. If he does not wish to return to Hatheg-Kla, that is his decision, and it is our duty to serve him and carry out his will, whatever that may be. Do not forget that."

Ismaire decided that of the two Shadrans, she preferred Adramellach. Nightmare would have agreed - Tebryn's devotion was nothing short of obsessive, and often it irritated him.

"Well, whatever we end up doing, I plan to stick around as well," Cassius stated, taking a few pieces of cooked meat from the fire.

Ismiare rolled her eyes. "If I'm not mistaken, Cassius, you have responsibilities too."

"Ah, they don't need me. They're self-sufficient - they don't need a king there to dictate every move. It's the mark of a good army."

Ismaire gave a slight exasperated sigh, rolling her eyes. "Well, I can't argue with that_ logic_..."

"We can all go back to Sylva," Megumi said. "After what I did, I don't expect them to welcome me back with open arms, but... I can find a place there again."

"They may be more welcoming than you think," Ismaire reassured her. The last she'd heard, Sylva was a dying nation, collapsing under the weight of its own neglect, desperate for the guidance of a sovereign.

She glanced at the two Shadrans, trying to imagine that fate befalling an entire _dimension. _Perhaps she would have to join them in their attempts to nudge Nightmare in the right direction.

"Yes, well... In any case, we likely won't be staying there long, not when there are obviously things that need to be taken care of. We'll have some time to make a plan, think everything through.." Megumi knew, too, that there would come a point when Nightmare would have to go back and face his responsibilities as the newly appointed ruler of the dark dimension, even if the title had been forced upon him.

He recognized the fact. "I know I'll have to stop avoiding it eventually. Any way we look at it, there's likely a war coming."

Adramellach nodded. "Not only in Hatheg-Kla, either. There are uprisings all throughout Lux Lucis Obscurum. Against Azoth."

"What?" Megumi said in surprise. This was the first she'd heard of this.

"Not surprising," Ismaire sighed. "He's a lousy god if I've ever seen one."

Megumi served in Azoth's order, but she could not bring herself to disagree with Ismaire's statement.

"There's an imbalance of power. Azoth is trying to recreate the dimensions as he sees fit, controlling both the light and dark forces. But it's necessary to have three different rulers - one for the light, one for the dark, and one neutral - to keep everything in check," Nightmare explained. "Not to mention that Z'xolkuloth is now trying to retake his position since integrating me into it didn't go as smoothly as he had planned."

"We _definitely _have another war on our hands," Ismaire grumbled in conclusion.

"So then we'd better be on our way," Cassius said. "It isn't going to fight itself."

"Oh, it might," Ismaire corrected. "But it's our job to make sure we do all we can to win it. Just like always, hmm?"

_Just like always._

_But this time there may be no victory._

* * *

Nightmare trudged on through on the snow, Tebryn and Adramellach following behind him and the others ahead of him in front.

The wings on his back ached numbly, feeling like a burden he could not rid himself of. These wings were not a key to freedom, they were shackles, binding him to the Chthonian Trilithon...

He wanted to stay here. He wanted to hide away in Ostreinsburg forever, forget all he'd learned of the omniverse, live in blissful oblivion for the rest of eternity and not be faced with the burden of the vast reserves of knowledge that came with this forced godhood.

But he could not hide from it. He would not be a coward.

He would move forward, he would bear the title and all that came with it. He would fight for victory, he would fight for _her_...

And he would, as they said, lead them to glory.


	10. Act IX : Hell's Judgement

**ACT IX : HELL'S JUDGEMENT**

They walked on for a few days; the snow accumulating snow had slowed their progress slightly, so they were set back and had to stay in a small village about fifteen miles from Sylva.

Nightmare recognized this place. He'd torn through here on a rampage when he'd still had Soul Edge. It was obvious the lasting impact it had had - houses were empty and abandoned; most of those who had not been killed had likely left, and no one was going to be eager to come back after what had transpired.

It was a good thing, then, that he'd made some effort to disguise himself - his wings were pulled in as close to his back as he could hold them and hidden by a thick cloak that he also pulled forward to hide his arm. The remnants of the village wouldn't likely appreciate the return of the demon that had destroyed their village, and though he knew he could defend himself without difficulty, there was no need to cause trouble unnecessarily.

There was one inn left in the village, and it almost appeared to be as abandoned as the other - negelcted, run-down - the only sign of anyone being there was the dim light emitted from one of the windows.

Nightmare let his hair fall over his right eyes as they entered. Subtlety was key in effectively hidings things. Unfortunately, this method could not be employed for Tebryn and Adramellach, who had no choice but to keep their featureless faces shadowed by their hoods. The innkeeper was noticeably suspicious of the group as they entered and Ismaire approached.

"We need a few rooms," she stated, not bothering with any sort of polite greeting.

The man raised an eyebrow. "And why might you need rooms _here _of all places? Nobody ever comes through here, and no one's stayed at this inn in months."

"We'll, we're all somebody, and we're asking for rooms. It isn't as though I'm making an unreasonable request, which you seem to think I am. I'm not requesting rooms for free, I'm willing to pay a fair amount. As for why we need lodging here in the first place, I don't know... Perhaps it's the goddamned _blizzard_ happening outside."

The man scoffed contemptuously. "Well, I don't see the logic in selling rooms to people like _you_." He motioned to the group behind her.

Ismaire grumbled a curse under her breath. "Look, I will admit we're a rather _odd-looking_ bunch, but let's be fair - We're the first paying customers you've had in a long while, and I think we're the last you'll see in another long while."

As the argument dragged on, Nightmare seethed, irritated. He imagined how easy it would be to simply kill the man and be done with it. However... he decided he would try something different - something more _fun_ than that.

_I find your unwarranted pretentiousness very unamusing, human._

The man stopped dead in mid-sentence, glancing around. "What the hell was that?"

"What?" Ismiare asked in an exasperated tone.

"That _voice_! Didn't you hear it?"

"I couldn't hear much of anything over your exceedingly irksome rambling. Which, by the way, were you planning on stopping any time soon?"

The man glared daggers, growling. "I'm_ serious. _Get out. I'll not do business with any people such as yourselves."

_Most unwise._

The man looked around again, starting to panic, trying to place the voice's source.

_You do anger me, human. I do not tolerate things that anger me. Perhaps you'd like to see for yourself?_

The man's mind was entirely unguarded, so Nightmare rifled through his memories. What did he most fear, what would truly affect him?

What would leave him in complete, unbridled terror?

_I know what you most fear, pathetic worm. How would you like to see those fears realized...?_

And into the man's mind were projected images of everything he'd ever feared - from his earlier childhood until now, everything, all the things that had ever terrfied him, gotten under his skin... Total, all-encompassing darkness, monsters straight from the blackest depths of his imaginings, his own family, who he'd killed with his own hands in a drunken stupor, returning to exact their revenge, dragging him down into that black pit with them...

"_Stop_!" he pleaded, his voice broken in a choked sob. "Ta-take whatever you w-want, I don't care! Take everything, take the rooms, I-I don't care, just make these things _stop_!"

Ismaire stared. "What the hell is..." She started to say, but slowly came to a realization and turned around. "Clunky? Did... you do this?"

The faint malicious smile lingering in his expression was answer enough.

"He would not comply with a reasonable request," Nightmare stated as though it were the most logical thing in the world, as though it offered complete justification for his actions. "So I employed one of my negotiation tactics. He really deserved it. You should see what filth his mind is."

Ismaire scowled. "That wasn't necessary."

"The alternative was killing him."

She looked back at the man - curled in the corner, sobbing and clutching at his head, whimpering for mercy, begging the lingering visions to cease their plaguing of his mind. "I'm not sure this was a much better action to have taken."

Megumi spoke up after a moment. "...She's right, Nightmare... He was being unreasonable and pompous, but that does not merit... this."

Nightmare's instantaneous transformation from a cold-hearted, immoral torturer to a demeanor more like a chastised child - guilt-ridden and deeply ashamed, unwitting and innocent, until right then unaware that he'd done something truly wrong - was shocking. Ismaire stared, astonished at how he now looked hurt by the reprimand - and even more astonished at how genuine it seemed. This couldn't have been feigned.

The man was truly over the edge. Off the deep end. Completely, unquestionably insane.

"Megumi, I- I..." He shifted nervously. "I didn't... think that I... I was trying... I thought... he deserved..."

Megumi realized she'd sent him into a panic and, with a concerned frown, reached out to touch his arm. "It's... It's alright. Just... don't abuse your power... Alright?"

After a moment, he relaxed and nodded.

Ismaire watched him for a moment, deciding to let this one go for now. After all... That innkeeper had been greatly irritating, and deep down, she somehow agreed with Nightmare - the man had gotten what he deserved.

"Right, well... May as well go ahead and take those rooms, eh? Not like I'm sleeping in another blizzard after all this. Let's go get settled."

Nightmare remained a few paces behind the group as they slowly filed up the stairs. He shot one last twisted sneer in the direction of the near-catatonic innkeeper.

"_Worthless piece of shit. And you humans call me the monster_."

* * *

Lost in another waking eternity, Nightmare had wandered up to the inn's roof and sat etching symbols into the wood with a small shard of stone. Tebryn and Adramellach stood at the two edges of the roof, keeping watch. He'd noticed their arrival a while ago, but hadn't said anything.

The shard snapped between his fingers. He tossed the broken pieces aside and looked out to the forests. The sky was dark, clouded over, rpoducing an eerie absence of light, and it was pitch-black in the distance, but he could see everything. He was at home in the dark.

"Tebryn. Adramellach. I didn't ask to be followed and babysat. Leave."

Adramellach responded with a shrug, turning to climb over the edge of the roof again. "Alright."

Tebryn stomped over with an angry huff to intercept him. "With all due respect, honored Khthon, the Council has decided that until your powers are fully realized, you are still vulnerable and therefore should not be left alone without a guard."

_Still vulnerable._

Nightmare gave a bitter laugh. "Tebryn, there isn't much that would be able to stand against me. Not in this world. Even in my supposedly..._ vulnerable_ state."

Tebryn wouldn't argue with him, though he disagreed. His eyes expressed what might have been a frown if he had features capable of making one.

Adramellach shrugged once more. "Ah, you know Tebryn, he _does_ have a point. He hardly needed us in our last battle against that horde of Baels, remember?"

Tebryn gave a near-imperceptible sigh of annoyance, but he knew Adramellach was right. Even vulnerable, Nightmare was exceedingly powerful.

But before he could say anything else, someone else came to join them on the roof. Tebryn tensed to attack when he heard footsteps approaching, but backed down when he noticed it was Cassius.

"Odd place to sit around," he said in greeting to Nightmare. "Unless you like the cold as much as I do."

"I'm used to it," Nightmare replied.

"Mm. Well, I simply thought I would come up to properly introduce myself. We haven't yet spoken, and I figured since we'll be... comrades of a sort, what with this impending war, that I should attempt to get to know you better."

_Who says we'll be comrades? I kill even my own men without so much as a second thought._

"I see why you're Ismaire's friend. By this you mean to catalogue my _weaknesses,_ don't you?"

Cassius frowned. "Of... course not. I figure she's done enough of_ that_ already. Are you always this distrusting?"

"I don't make friends."

"Just enemies?"

"Usually. I find the more I know, the less appealing friendships seem."

"That's a rather... Broad statement."

"And when you know what I do, you can afford to make such statements. You're beginning to irritate me."

Cassius was slightly taken aback by his bluntness.

Noting this, Nightmare smirked. "You didn't _honestly_ come up here expecting to make friends with me just like _that_, did you?"

"Well, to be completely honest, I might have expected something a bit less harsh." Cassius didn't seem hurt by it, though - more amused.

"And that is something you will have to _earn_."

"Then I look forward to earning it. Lack of common decency aside, I ca nsee you as someone I'd like to count among my friends in the future."

"Don't count on it."

"Oh, I won't."

Nightmare stood and slowly walked back to the roof's edge. "Seems I can't go anywhere without being followed. All your presences make it difficult to think. Not to mention I can barely hear you over everything else going on in my head." He sighed. "It never stops. I have to hear it all, and know all I'm hearing... The noise becomes grating. It never shuts up."

Tebryn followed him after he'd climbed back in through the window. Adramellach went to follow them too, waiting until Tebryn was out of earshot before saying in closing to Cassius, "I'd give up on trying to understand anything he says."


	11. Act X : Upon the Blood of Men

**ACT X: UPON THE BLOOD OF MEN**

A broken and impoverished remnant of what it once was, Sylva stood silent in the distance.

Ismaire frowned, glancing back at the rest of the group. She'd known it was bad, but now the once-magnificent kingdom seemed almost to be abandoned.

"Megumi," she called in warning. "Don't... Don't be expecting too much from the place."

Megumi raised an eyebrow as she approached. "Why?"

Ismaire made a sweeping gesture toward the city in the distance. Even from here, the chaos it had fallen into was obvious. "Looks like no one's bothered with it since you left."

Megumi looked on silently, imaginings of a joyful homecoming giving way to the reality of the situation. The city was in shambles - and she was, at least in part, the cause of it.

But it was not entirely her fault, something Ismaire felt compelled to point out. "I can't say I'm all that impressed with the job your fellow Elementals have done to keep the kingdom going."

Megumi shook her head. "No... They couldn't replace me while I was still alive. They couldn't..."

"You mean they knew?" Ismaire snapped, interrupting. "Well... They might have at least found someone to keep the kingdom itself in one peice, if not the Elemental power it represented and housed." She started forward. "In any case, we have our work cut out for us."

Nightmare caught up to the rest of the group, but appeared uninterested with their destination. Instead he examined the surrounding landscape as though he were searching for something.

"You _lost, _Clunky?" Ismaire scoffed. "Keep up."

He glared ahead at her, but said nothing.

"Something the matter, Khthon?" Adramellach asked as he walked up next to him.

Tebryn, who believed only in speaking to Nightmare when spoken to or when absolutely necessary, looked ready to leap in and verbally berate Adramellach for his insolence, but thought better of it and instead chose to tolerate his comrade's lack of manners.

Nightmare glanced over as if it hadn't been clear that Adramellach was speaking to him. "...I can... hear them all there, calling me back."

"Back where?"

"Home," he answered cryptically.

Adramellach sighed. Another bout of hopeless insanity, accompanied by Nightmare's ever-incomprehensible rambling. Still, there was a good chance this "home" he mentioned was Hatheg-Kla.

Perhaps they were finally making some progress.

* * *

Sylva was a worse sight within.

Even the more destitute parts of the city had been fairly clean and provided with enough before, but now, everything was the same - collapsing into ruin, freezing and starving citizens dead and dying in the streets.

Had she any idea the impact her leaving would effect, Megumi might not have considered it in the first place. She'd ruled over this kingdom for more than a century, and seeing it in this state was devastating.

No one payed them any mind as they worked their way through the streets to the castle, all were buried and blinded by their own misery.

And it wasn't until they reached the courtyard that they saw soldiers of any sort; and even these looked to be in poor health and completely lacking any motivation to head out into the city and protect the citizens from the thieves that surely prowled the streets.

One soldier at the front gate caught sight of the group as they approached and walked forward to intercept them. She seemed to be initiating an interrogation when a puzzled look came across her face, and she looked closer at Megumi. "Your... Highness?"

"Zamira?"

The woman gave a slow nod, bewildered. "Your Highness, we didn't anticipate... None of us thought..."

Megumi looked away. "I know Zamira. This place... Gods, what have I done..."

"Nothing we cannot correct in due time, Highness." Zamira glanced over. "Commander Uemytlach."

Ismaire gave a slight smile and a nod. "Nice to see you haven't forgotten me. Though you all seem to have forgotten yourselves." She nodded to the surrounding soldiers. "This seems to be more than a simple case of low morale."

Zamira nodded gravely. "Yes. The kingdom is in ruins. My uncle, General Bashkir, has made attempts to establish order in the beginning, but they quickly fell apart. Right now... We're barely holding on to what scraps of an army we have left. There is no doubt that, should anyone choose to attack us, we would fall nigh-instantaneously."

"Well then, you'll have to hope no one makes any move to do so before you have a chance to get the kingdom back on its feet," Cassius said. "I'd send reinforcements from Terreglace, but they've got their hands full with an invasion of monsters..."

"Lemurian beasts are making their way to the rifts between this dimension and ours, Hatheg-Kla," Tebryn explained.

Zamira glanced over at him. His hood was up, so she couldn't see his eerie lack of facial features, but from what he had said, she obviously assumed he was not human. "Rifts?"

"Gateways into Lux Lucis Obscurum. Specifically, our side of the realm, the dark one. There should be only one, near Caer Pelyn, the true Rift, but chaos and imbalance throughout all of Lux Lucis Obscurum has opened others." He finally removed his hood. "We are Shadrans. We reside in Hatheg-Kla, but we came to this dimension in search of our Khthon." He nodded to Nightmare.

"Shadrans... If I'm not mistaken, Lord Arion Raekyn was a Shadran?" Zamira questioned. Megumi nodded confirmation. "And..."

"That's right. You remember our old pal the Azure Knight, don't you, Zamira?" Ismaire asked.

"But... I thought that..."

"So did the rest of us. Couldn't get rid of him that easily."

Zamira turned to Megumi. "So this all has connections to Azoth, if denizens of his realm are involved."

"Yes. Although there's more at play here than just Azoth himself, and I have a feeling that loyalties will be tested in the near future."

Zamira nodded silently. "Well, we will take this all one step at a time. First and foremost, we should notify the entire kingdom of your return."

Megumi frowned, looking down. "But... I abandoned these people. They will not..."

"Your Highness, in the face of all this, they will find it much easier to forgive you and move forward than to hold a grudge. You are likable and relatable as a ruler."

Megumi nodded, feeling ashamed. She did not deserve such a welcome. But she would work to restore this kingdom until she did deserve the support of her people.

Ismaire gave a shrug. "That can surely wait another day, though. We're all thoroughly exhausted."

"Of course." Zamira replied wit a slight bow. "Most of the castle has remained in decent shape throughout the collapse of the rest of the kingdom. You can all stay here and tomorrow we will begin planning on how to rebuild and restructure."

"Sounds good enough to me." Ismaire started up the steps to the castle's entrance. "Of course, you, Clunky, should really consider going back to deal with your own world's problems, since they seem to be overflowing into this one."

"I planned to," he snapped impatiently. "You attempt to carry out my duties for a year, and you come back and tell me you don't wish for a brief repose every now and again."

Ismaire glared. "Only a suggestion. No need to come undone like that."

"Is she bothering you, Honored Khthon?" Tebryn asked with an edge in his voice, hand on the hilt of his scimitar.

"Is she _breathing_? Yes, she is bothering me, but I wouldn't waste my time, Tebryn. Nothing will stop her from doing _that_."

"_Someone_ woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning," Ismaire muttered.

"Can't wake up if you never go to sleep in the first place. You can't wake up when you're always awake to begin with," Nightmare countered with an oddly feral snarl.

Giving a final exasperated sigh, Ismaire walked off, terminating the conversation.

Nightmare cursed under his breath, infuriated. But she was right, unless he returned to handle the chaotic imbalance of Hatheg-Kla, it would seep into this world like a contagious infection. It already had begun to, in fact.

"Nightmare, please... She wasn't trying to upset you," Megumi told him quietly.

"I know," he responded, in a voice that sounded suddenly drained of energy. "I just... Find such statements of the obvious irritating. I'm well aware the state my dimension is in."

She took him by the hand, leading him towards the steps. "Let's not worry about that right now. Like Zamira said... We'll take it all one step at a time."

"Yes, well..." He slowly followed after her.

_One step at a time may not be fast enough._


	12. Act XI : On Black Wings Night Falls

**ACT XI: ON BLACK WINGS NIGHT FALLS**

"There's no avoiding it. One way or another, I have to return."

Megumi looked over at Nightmare as he spoke, wishing that she didn't have to accept this, the very thing she'd been hoping not to hear.

"I... I know," she replied quietly after a moment. "But I wish you didn't... You've only just come back..."

He shook his head. "Yes... But I want you to be safe, and when I stay here, with you, letting all the monsters from my world into this one... Safe is the last thing you'll be."

She sighed. "I don't care. I don't want to be safe, I want to be with you. I don't want to be alone again."

"If you say much more than that, I'll change my mind about going back." Nightmare frowned.

"I know... It's selfish of me, but..."

"I'd much rather stay, believe me... I'd like nothing better. But I need to ensure the corruption of Hatheg-Kla spreads no farther." He crossed the room from where he'd been standing to sit on the end of the bed next to her. "I won't be gone but two weeks. You won't have a chance to miss me."

"That's not true," she insisted.

"And how do you know?"

"I _already _miss you," she countered with a wry smile.

He reluctantly mirrored the expression. "I'll be home soon enough."

* * *

"You're leaving already?" Ismaire asked after Nightmare from the top of the courtyard steps as he and Tebryn and Adramellach prepared to trek back tothe nearest rift - the one at Caer Pelyn.

Nightmare scowled. "What's the matter? I thought you couldn't see me leave soon enough."

"Well, yes, admittedly, I'm not sure I much like you being around, and I can see the feeling's mutual... So it is probably for the best. But I didn't think you had it in you to leave," Ismaire said in a tone that was obviously mocking.

"Of course you didn't... You constantly underestimate and look down on me." The looming challenge flashed through his eyes.

Ismaire ignored it. "Yes, well, moving right along... Try to be a good boy while you're gone, and don't give me any reasons to have to smack you around once you come back."

It was as good a farewell as he was getting. Nightmare only scoffed at her in reply.

"Excuse my interruption, most Honorable Khthon," Adramellach said in a tone dusted with sarcasm, though its intended insult was directed at Tebryn and not Nightmare, "but we really should be leaving."

"Yes, I _know_," Nightmare muttered. He started off towards the gate.

The sooner he left, the sooner he could come back. And the sooner he came back, the sooner he'd be truly _home_ again, where he could be with Megumi and away from the burden of shaping the fate of an entire universe, where he could grasp at fragments of lucidity, where everything was simpler, more normal, more right all together... if only temporarily.

"Nightmare," he heard Megumi call, and turned to face her. She stood at the top of the courtyard steps, still pushing open one of the doors. She'd rushed out here to say goodbye, though he'd wanted to avoid having to face her before he left. Even now, he knew it would be all too easy to call off the entire journey.

But she kept it short and simple, enough that he solidified his resolve enough to continue. "Come back soon."

He turned back again, slowly stepping away. "I will. I promise."

* * *

The rift, when they found it, was little more than a dark, gaping chasm, a few hundred meters from the entrance of Caer Pelyn, the Black Temple. A human might have seen it as little more than a deep fracture of the earth's surface.

Returning to this place felt odd. Because it was here, in the depths of the temple, where he'd been killed, in a battle he'd won but not survived.

Lucifurius had too much pride in his twisted, black mass of a heart to go down alone.

Still, Nightmare was the one standing here now. He shrugged aside his feelings of unease and stepped over to the chasm's edge. Home in the dark was on the other side.

He glanced at each of his wings. They had healed enough that he would be able to use them now, but there was still something about them he detested - abhorrence that drove him to avoid using them. He would do so simply to spite them, even if it meant a longer and slower trek to his destination.

Carefully, he gripped the edge of the over hang and climbed down, until he was swallowed in the shadows, past where the light could reach into the deep abyss. Tebryn and Adramellach silently followed after him.

There was something inexplicably comforting about this sort of darkness - the true pitch-black absence of light.

He climbed down for a long while until at last some light shone dully from an opening above - he'd crossed the threshold, he'd moved through the dimensional barrier - and he changed directions, climbing up now.

When he reached the top he hauled himself up and over the edge, looking out over the barren landscape of this part of Hatheg-Kla.

The skies above were dark red, the color of blood, faintly illuminated by the dim light of a dully burning red sun, another pitch-black orb looming behind it like a beast laying in wait for attack. One of the realm's two moons. The feilds ahead were almost entirely devoid of life, cold and rocky, a sort of tundra.

Off in the distance, black obsidian spires glittering in the red sun, stood Khanda Ura, the capitol of Hatheg-Kla.

"Home at last," Adramellach said contentedly, walking on ahead of Nightmare and Tebryn.

Tebryn's ears twitched, indicating he was listening for something. "Adramellach. Wait. There are Baels and Gwyllgi ahead, probably sent to hunt for the Khthon. We should proceed with caution."

"What, for my sake?" Nightmare said with mocking half-flatteredness. "Don't be ridiculous."

Tebryn followed obediently behind him as he made his way to the citadel at the other end of the feilds ahead of them. As they got closer, the shrill cries of the monsters became louder, and some of them had started to take notice of the group and close in. They were eventually close enough that it was clear they planned to attack.

Tebryn drew his scimitar. "Honored Khthon, allow me to deal with these beasts."

Nightmare raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh, come now, Tebryn. I haven't gotten to have much fun these past weeks."

With that he dove at a Bael, one of the winged, gargoyle-like creatures, which had been attempting to sneak up on him, spearing its neck with his claws. As he did he turned to catch another one by the wing, slamming it into the rocky, unforgiving ground.

A swarm accumulated quickly, and Gwyllgi had joined the fray, feral canine creatures with bloodlust so powerful even fatal wounds could not bring them to relent easily. But Tebryn and Adramellach fought expertly, quickly decapitating foes before moving to another target.

Nightmare was laughing as he he went about mutilating his opposition - but it was a sharp, mirthless sound, too cold and illucid to hold any happiness. It was a mere expression of his deep-set insanity, born from the sudden frenzy of battle.

Minutes dragged on, and the group was starting to tire. The beasts came in droves - though their numbers gradually dwindled, their attacks were no less persistent, and Nightmare's servants were beginning to wonder how long this could go on.

"Khthon!" Tebryn called over the din of frenzied monsters, beheading a lunging Bael. "We are severely outnumbered... I suggest we consider retreating for now."

"Nonsense!" Nightmare replied with almost disturbing giddyness, tossing aside the mutilated corpse of a Gwyllgi. Even unarmed, his claws funtioned sufficiently as a weapon. "We've only just gotten to the enjoyable part."

Tebryn said nothing and turned to face another batch of enemies when a shadow passed overhead, and an earth-shattering roar sounded from somewhere above. A thick, fetid fog descended over the horde before him, and the bodies of the creatures seemed to rot and disentigrate nigh-instantaneously, collapsing into decayed piles of detritus and bone.

The ground shook as four titanic feet met with it, and some of the monsters immediately began to back away. Those who did not were startled away by a growl that sounded like the beginning of an earthquake.

Its source was yet another monster, this one a gargantuan dragon, easily the size of a small mountain. Its skin was a mottled gray color, the color of things long dead. Its outstretched wings looked like the sails of some ghostly ship, red sunlight shining through old scarred rips in the thick, leathery skin.

Tebryn and Adramellach recognized the monster as a Niddhog, though this one was not an enemy, indicated by the Chthonian emblem branded on its shoulder and the way it moved one massive pillar of a leg protectively in front of Nightmare as the last of the smaller beasts scrambled off.

"Couldn't send any other welcoming party than you, Genarog?" Nightmare said up to the huge beast. It was, in a way, his pet. "Well, you're big enough, I suppose." He patted its leg.

Pleased with the praise, Genarog gave an earsplitting happy cry and lowered himself level as he could with his master, blinking milk-white eyes as he stared expectantly, wating for a reward. To the massive beast's disappointment, Nightmare only patted his nose and continued on to Khanda Ura, his servants follwing after.

* * *

Khanda Ura was truly a magnificent fortress if there had ever been one. It was nearly the size of Ostreinsburg and Sylva combined, and infinitely more exquisite in its design.

Torches blazed in the main hall, reflecting over the glossy black tiles of the stone floor. The soldiers posted at the main doors dropped to one knee in a bow when they saw Nightmare approaching, but he ignored them as he passed through, continuing on into the castle. He eventually stopped in the throne room, where he was met by Septimus Swain.

"So... You've finally returned, child."

Nightmare met his gaze. "Yes. What of it? I haven't yet seen how my being here improves the state of the realm in any way."

"You are impatient. There are tasks only you have the power to carry out, aside from leading your armies to battle." Septimus turned from him. "We of the Council understand your ties to the human realm, and we will allow you to return periodically, but you must not neglect what needs to be done here."

"Allow me? You don't allow me anything. You don't have the power to make me _allowances_... I, as the ruler of this entire realm, may do whatever I damn well please."

Septimus faced him again. "But you won't. You understand what needs to be done, and you know the consequences if you abandon your duties. I realize you may be impulsive and selfish at times, but you are not a fool, Nightmare."

"No, I'm not," he replied quietly. "I came back, didn't I? I'll do what I must. I'll bring this place back to equilibrium... Just _stop treating me like a child_."

Septimus stood silent for a moment. "Well, since you've returned, you should meet with the rest of the Council as soon as possible to determine your next plan of action. Azoth seems to be planning to declare war on us and the human world at any time, and as we've discussed previously, our last remaining option seems to be a coup de'tat and a replacement."

"Yes, I remember." Nightmare sighed. "Later. It takes time for me to aclimate to this change of dimensions. I can barely sort through my own thoughts the damn noise is so loud."

Septimus nodded. "Of course. Oh, but there is someone here who wishes to speak with you." He stepped over to the doors that Tebryn and Adramellach now stood guarding, exiting as another entered from off in the shadows of the corners of the room.

He was a Shadran, the same black featureless face, pointed ears, and silvery white hair as the others, with bright golden eyes. He moved as though he had long since forgotten how and was only just remembering - with jerky, uncoordinated movements that seemed to take concentration in and of themselves.

"Broken-wings, back to the shadows... Was Quiet calling you, too? Back from that place of all things, where we are not... You went to see Little-Pride?"

Though the man's speech was nonsensical, seemingly impossible to understand, he and Nightmare had allowed brief fragments of thought into eachothers minds, and Nightmare understood the basis of what he meant.

"Yes. I did. And you've found your way out of the forest, I see."

The Shadran's ears dropped. "D-didn't want to stay, Broken-wings... They lie there, they lie and they speak of all the deeds and I... n-never wanted to make Pride go silent but I did and I did it with Envy and they call me that now..." he trailed off.

"Well, whatever they may call you, it doesn't change your real name. The Council called me Zuranthus for months after I came here, and that wasn't my name. You're still Arion, even if they call you anything different.

"That's...my...name?" Arion stared uncomprehendingly, but soon forgot the subject and moved on. "I want to see Little-Pride too, Broken-wings... She was Pride's child thing and not mine but... I wanted her to be and I wanted what Pride had and Little-Pride called me Papa and that was why I made the silence with the Envy in my heart..."

"Ah, well... When I return, you can come with me, I suppose. I'm sure she'd like seeing you."

"Th-thank you, Broken wings... We knew you could lead us on to glory, we knew you would speak and breathe and bleed through the silence... That was why I lead you to Ivolt's child-thing and away from Quiet and its lies..." Arion looked at him as if expecting him to finish.

"I intend to grow into my title," Nightmare assured the mad Shadran. "I will fight this war until it is won."

Arion seemed unsettled by that statement, saying quietly before finally walking off, "One side of everything cannot bring to the silence he who watches all."


	13. Act XII : Keeper of Memories

**ACT XII: KEEPER OF MEMORIES**

Ismaire watched the group of soldiers she'd been asked to direct in the long-neglected task of enforcing Sylva's laws. The men - boys, more like - were the newest recruits, and they were inexperienced in this feild.

Sink or swim, Ismaire thought. She'd make soldiers of them yet.

"Come on, you useless slugs, stop standing around! You've been slacking off long enough, the smallest service you can give to your kingdom is carrying out these few menial tasks I've assigned you. Get moving! I want this place free of bandits by the end of the week!"

Even with that order, she knew she'd be lucky if she could get them to catch even a handful of the bandits that infested the city by then.

She set out, deciding she could at least help them by setting an example. She'd catch a few thieves herself. They blended in with the rest of the populace, dirty and starving, and some were difficult to catch in the act. They were the potentially dangerous ones, wily and cunning, willing even to kill to get what they wanted.

She went easier on the ones who were obvious in stealing things - the inexperienced thieves, who only stole because they truly had no other options. She'd caught a little girl taking a stale old loaf of bread from a merchant's basket and given her a proper reprimand for the crime, but, in the end, knowing she'd only committed it out of desparation, Ismaire gave her a few coins to properly pay for the food before walking off.

Some of the citizens recognized Ismaire as they saw her leading the small group of soldiers through the streets - most of those who did thanked her for what she was doing, grateful that order and peace were making a slow return to the city. At last, things were beginning to take a turn for the better.

One little boy ran up and tugged on her sleeve, stopping her. "You're Commander Uemytlach, right?"

She nodded. "I am. And you are...?"

"Timmy Tibalt Alexander!" the boy replied enthusiastically, as if this simple exchange of names was an exciting endeavor. "My family used to work for the queen. Could you tell her something for me?"

"Sure I could, kid."

"Could you tell her that I'm glad she came back? She's always been so nice to me, and I was sad when she left."

Ismiare offered a slight smile and ruffled the boy's hair. "I'm sure she'll be happy to hear that, Timmy. Maybe I'll see if she can get your family their jobs back."

Timmy returned a gap-toothed grin. "Thanks, Commander!" He happily bounded off.

"See, these are the things you're protecting. These people are the reason you're out here," Ismaire said to the fidgeting soldiers behind her. "With _that_ thought in your minds, maybe we can actually get some work done..."

She sent them off to patrol on their own, knowing she was more likely to catch someone in the act while she was alone. She wasn't dressed in a soldier's attire, so she would blend in, for the most part, assuming they didn't recognize her.

Sure enough, after only a few moments of searching, she encountered one.

"'Scuse me," a young man muttered under his breath as he ran into her.

She allowed him to advance a few steps before swinging her scythe around so that the blade just rested against his neck, stopping him in his tracks.

"I realize we're all strapped for cash around here, but that was a truly _amateur_ job, boy. Now, I suggest you wise up, keep your head there on your shoulders, and give back what you stole."

"Stole? I didn't steal anything," he replied, in a tone oddly devoid of the nervousness typical of those who'd been caught stealing. And those with a blade to their throat, for that matter.

Ismaire shook her head. "And a terrible liar, on top of that..." Catching him off guard, she charged at him, knocking him over and keeping him pinned there on the ground with a knee dug into his back.

With a frustrated sigh, he wormed an arm out enough to toss away the small pouch of coin he'd taken from Ismaire's belt, which she retreived, releasing him. When he stood, however, he made no move to run off, as she might have expected.

Now that she got a better look at him, she could see that he looked just like any of the other townspeople - thin and dirty, his wavy chestnut hair pulled back in a messy, tangled ponytail, exhaustion and desperation stark and clear in his dark brown eyes. Beneath patches of unshaven stubble, he looked pallid and sickly. Yet there was something about him that somehow seemed eerily familiar.

"I feel like I've seen you before... Do I know you?"

"Not likely." He turned to walk away. "I'm just passing through."

Ismaire frowned as she watched him shuffle off until he disappeared around a corner. There had _definitely _been something familiar about that man.

But what had that been? She couldn't place it, though she went over and over the possibilities in her head. She could follow and interrogate him, but with his dismissal of the possiblility that he knew her, she didn't expect any straight answers.

So she settled for leaving the issue in obscurity as she continued on through the city, snapping at indolent soldiers as she went.

* * *

"Nice of you to finally show up, Nightmare."

"He had other business to attend to," Tebryn said defensively before exiting the room as he'd been ordered to do. Nightmare sat down at the head of a massive onyx table at the room's center.

"Regardless, you're back now, so we can tend to what needs to be done here."

The woman who spoke was a Mytonian, their Witch-Queen. She had thick, dull golden blonde hair and sharp violet eyes that seemed overly critical of everything they beheld. The man next to her was clad in all black, with a long, curved sword at his belt. His black hair, streaked with silver, fell tied back in a loose ponytail to the middle of his back. His dark red eyes held a more aloof quality than those of the woman.

Both appeared human, but there was something about them that commanded respect. Something ancient and wise beyond the ken of most.

"Well then, you'd best enlighten me as to what that is, Ilithyia, so we can do what we must," Nightmare said with strained patience.

"You know of the complications with Azoth already," the man stated. "And you know we have reason to be wary of Z'xolkuloth and Theoria."

_Yes I do know that I know that better than you're aware because I know everything they showed me don't I because I know of it all everything everything all of it all those thoughts every feeling all of it make it stop make it be quiet don't let me go back-_

Nightmare stopped himself by digging his fingernails so deep into his palm that the skin broke and hot blood started to drip from between his clenched fingers. "Yes... I am well aware of _that_."

"What we don't know," said the woman, now identified as Ilithyia, "is _why. _Z'xolkuloth was quite clear in his warning to you that if you gave indication of taking the same path Lucifurius did, one of destructive intent, that he would kill you and claim you position as Khthon once again. But Theoria..."

The man shook his head. "There is simply no explanation for it. She has never before attempted to intervene anywhere outside her own domain, and she has never before pursued anyone as she does you."

Nightmare glanced up at him. "There most certainly is an explanation for it, Balthazar."

Balthazar raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Well then, enlighten us, as you say."

"I know that you two, of course, haven't received the knowledge she has the duty to distribute," Nightmare started. "It's given to us higher beings exclusively, and anyone who Azoth feels the need to punish." He thought of Septimus, trapped within Lux Lucis Obscurum for the rest of eternity, with the absolute knowledge he'd always wished for. Half of it given by Lucifurius, and the other half forcibly imposed by Theoria under Azoth's orders. In possession of the power he'd always wanted... And completely helpless to utilize it. It must have been torture. But at least Septimus had kept his sanity.

"No, we haven't," Ilithyia confirmed.

"She has the memories of every event of every dimension in all of the omniverse, and every thought and feeling ever thought or felt by every sentient being ever to exist in it. All that, mixed in with her own memories. As you can imagine, in that sort of existence, retaining a sense of individuality is difficult."

"Certainly."

"Well..." Nightmare paused, thinking of the contact he'd made with her mind, and what her intentions had been. "First it may help you to understand that Theoria... is my mother."

"What?" Balthazar asked, a slight amount of shock in his tone.

"Yes. Z'xolkuloth and Theoria had been lovers, but after I was born, he left her."

"Why?" Ilithyia asked with the raise of an eyebrow. "Surely not because he didn't want to take responsibility for you - he always wanted a child..."

"Just the opposite. She cared nothing for me; he left her because she could not handle not being the sole recipient of his attention, even though his attention to me was indirect. She was envious of me - her own son."

Ilithyia and Balthazar silently waited for him to continue.

"So when it came time for me to receive the knowledge I had to to become Khthon, she saw an opportunity for retaliation. First she had decided upon torturing me, but then she realized how similar I was to Z'xolkuloth, and how, given the knowledge he had, I might serve as a sort of replacement - something that would allow her to keep a grip on her sense of who she was. A replica of him, in a way. But my mind, the clay for that replica, shattered in the kiln-"

"And you went insane." Ilithyia shook her head. "She gave you too much of the knowledge. Far too much, far too quickly."

"And she's looking for you because you're her identity. The only thing that lets her know what she is, since its unlikely Z'xolkuloth will take her back, after all this."

Nightmare nodded. "My knowledge of the omniverse isn't... _quite_ absolute. There are edge of it I know nothing of, and some, only fragments."

"If she forced any more on you..."

"No. Kill me before that happens."

"Alright... Well, now we know Theoria's motives." Ilithyia sighed.

Nightmare stood. "But Azoth is the greater threat at the moment. Theoria, I can avoid... for now."

Balthazar nodded his agreement. "We're still searching for a replacement. We've narrowed it down to a few candidates... It's a matter of choosing now. That replacement will have to defeat Azoth himself, but... He has servants, too, of course, that will also need to be taken care of."

"Which will be left up to me, mostly, and whatever small band of forces I can take," Nightmare grumbled.

"Ah, but that should pose no problem for you. You're the most brilliant tactician I've known in many centuries," Balthazar said to him. "I've no doubt you could fell an entire planet with only five men backing you, if you were so minded."

"I could do it myself if I was so minded," Nightmare said with a manic grin that was the slightest bit frightening.

"Which is why," Balthazar said, turning to leave with Ilithyia, "I'm glad not to count you among my enemies."


	14. Act XIII : Abysmal Ascent

**ACT XIII: ABYSMAL ASCENT**

The days dragged on at a nearly unbearable pace.

It had been a long time since Nightmare had felt this pitted, this hollow - an ache that the daily slaughtering of masses of monsters did little to alleviate. He wondered how it was that the act of killing had once been the entire purpose of his existence. Not that he didn't enjoy it now, but it lacked the level of importance he once assigned to it.

He was tempted to just keep moving through the hordes ahead of him - right back to the Rift, right back to the human world, right back to Megumi, putting everything else behind him and not once bothering to look back - -

But he'd see her again soon enough, he had to remind himself. Soon enough he would be allowed to return.

And once this war was over, he wouldn't have to put up with these periods of separation, or worry about Chthonian monsters getting into the human world, which was, though not his true dominion, the only place that ever really felt like home.

Nightmare stopped at the edge of the battlefield. The Shadrans of his army were excellent warriors, and very few of them were needed in actual combat at a time. Most lay in wait behind the front lines, trading off with those who'd been injured or had weapons that needed repairs.

Adramellach was observing the fight for the moment - though his weapons were at the ready, and though his posture seemed relaxed, Nightmare could tell just at a glance that he was prepared for a fight, should one come.

He nodded in greeting when he saw Nightmare approach. "Afternoon, Nightmare."

"Adramellach." Nightmare preferred speaking to Adramellach - or any of his soldiers, for that matter - when Tebryn was not present. Tebryn was conservative with Chthonian tradition to a point of ridiculousness - in fact, had he been there now he would have chastised Adramellach for addressing Nightmare by name and not by title.

"So, no leads as to where these bastards are coming from yet?"

"No. They may be revolting of their own accord. No casualties yet today?"

"None," Adramellach confirmed. "Your strategies prove flawless as always. Has the Council made a decision concerning Azoth's replacement yet?"

"No, unfortunately. This matter -" Nightmare made a sweeping gesture at the monsters ahead, "- will not be a great priority for quite some time if this keeps up."

Adramellach sighed. "Enemies on all sides, eh?"

"I'm used to it," Nightmare said dismissively.

"General," a female Shadran said in greeting to Adramellach. Her eyes were violet, and her silver hair, which fell almost to her knees, was braided loosely. "The opposition seems to have gained numbers."

Adramellach turned to face her. "Well then, send more of our own out there, Tethys. As I've said before, you don't need my permission, I know you're more than capable of making those decisions on your own."

"Of course." Tethys turned to Nightmare and bowed. "My sincerest apologies, Khthon, for interrupting your conversation."

"No matter," Nightmare said coldly.

"In any case, when we're finished here, Tethys, might you want to meet for a sparring session? Or maybe just a walk?" Adramellach asked her.

"Certainly."

Nightmare frowned as she walked off. Adramellach was head-over-heels in love with Tethys, and Nightmare had to wonder why. It was clear she didn't return his feelings - she just enjoyed dragging him around like a dog on a leash. Adramellach was possibly the closest thing to a friend Nightmare had, but he could not bring himself to like Tethys.

"I believe I'll join in on this battle," he said to Adramellach after a moment.

"Don't let me stop you. But I will expect you to bail me out when Tebryn has me arrested and incarcerated for not going out there to guard you."

"Oh, don't worry about that," Nightmare muttered as he headed forward. The jest was too true to be amusing.

He drew his sword from the sheath on his back as he approached a mass of Baels - this one had been forged expertly and specifically for use by only him. Soul Edge and Eclipse that he'd weilded before could not compare to the perfect balance of this weapon - it truly felt like little more than an extension of a limb when he held it in his hand.

It was beautiful in its design, too - the hardened obsidian that madeup the blade was translucent, allowing red rays of sun to shine through the blade, illuminating it as though lit up with dark fire. The Chthonian Trilithon, emblem of this entire realm - Nightmare's emblem, now - was inlaid in silver just above the the blade's ebony handle, and etched into the emblem's top was the weapon's name: _NAGLFAR._

He hefted it over his shoulder and brought it right down on a Bael's head, cleaving it in in two, with speed he never would have been able to muster before he'd come here.

Aside from the madness steadily gnawing away at his psyche and the wings he could not rid himself of, there were some advantages to being the ruler of this place.

He'd scarcely taken down three of the beasts when they scattered, screeching at the top of their lungs. Amidst the tangle of leathery black wings as they struggled to move away, Nightmare could make out the shape of another monster moving towards him. It was a Bael - though this one was different.

It had the same hunched-over, almost humanoid body as the others, same thin snakelike tail and gnarled wings. But its body was rotting; chunks of flesh had fallen away from its back, exposing a twisted spine, and in looked as though the flesh over its ribs had worn away by some abrasion. Its face was almost disturbing in that traces of what had likely once been a human still visible. Matted strands of filthy black hair fell over clouded red eyes, and the monster's face seemed to be permanently set into a grotesque parody of a grin, revealing jagged, decaying teeth.

"They just keep making you uglier, don't they?"

The grin stayed in place, but the creature's eyes blazed with fury. "You'd bessst watch your tongue, boy, or I'll wassste no time ripping it out," it rasped in a hissing voice.

"It was merely an observation. Now, who are you?"

It scoffed. "My name isss Dorian, child. Perhapsss your massster may have mentioned me."

"_That bastard was not my master_," Nightmare growled warningly. "Dorian... You wielded Soul Edge, but you were murdered by the men of Vercci, and the sword was eventually handed off to Cervantes de Leon."

"Hmph. Ssso you know my hissstory."

"Not all of it. Before your being killed, everything else is in obscurity."

Dorian's perpetual grin seemed to widen. "Ah, but it has connectionsss to you, in a way... But that wasss long ago, sssurely irrelevant now."

"How so?" Nightmare asked slowly, hand tightening on the handle of his sword.

"I may be sssecluded from the happeningsss of everything outssside of Lemuria, but I am aware of your feelingsss for Aeolia."

_Megumi._ His jaw clenched.

"Yesss, I am aware of your weaknessss." Dorian sneered. "You know enough about the Elementalsss, I asssume, to know that they were all once humansss, and that, in order to receive their powers, they had to face death and return..."

"_You had better watch what comes out of your mouth next_," Nightmare warned.

"_Heheheheh._I wasss the one to kill her, but unfortunately, it wasss not a lasssting effect... Ssso I intend now to finisssh what I sss-"

Nightmare swung at Dorian's head, but he ducked to the side with surprising speed.

"_You won't fucking get near her_."

Dorian's eyes sparked with twisted glee as Nightmare rushed to attack again. "Come on, then... We'll jussst sssee if you can catch me."

He moved away, stopping every so often to taunt Nightmare, but he had made no move to strike yet - his strategy was to repeatedly dodge and flee. Nightmare, blinded by rage, did not see the intent behind the action - Dorian was leading him right to the edge of a sudden dropoff. He stopped with his back turned to it, and Dorian chuckled.

"Never even usssed thossse wingsss, have you, boy?" He lunged forward, slamming the full force of his body into Nightmare, knocking him over the edge and out into the open air, with nothing but a long plummet to the ground beneath him.

Realizing his mistake, Nightmare silently cursed. Dorian was right, he had no idea how to use his wings. Still, he tried desperately to learn now. He snapped them out to catch the air, but, weakened by never having been used, they folded uselessly against the rush of wind that came and there was nothing to stop him from slamming into the rocky, merciless ground. The shock of the collision left him stunned and winded. Blood coated his tongue as he hauled himself back to his feet.

"Not too graceful a flier, are you?" Dorian sneered, flapping just out of reach.

Nightmare glared up at him. Dorian was safe in the air as long as Nightmare was grounded like this - and unless he caught enough of a gust to take off, he would remain so. He had watched enough winged monsters to know that simply flapping would not bring him off the ground - he had to let the wind carry him.

Dorian looked down expectantly from above. He'd underestimated Nightmare's common sense on the matter of flight, and was beginning to wonder if he'd simply given up when all of the sudden his wings unfurled again, tensed against a sudden gust that snatched him up, lifting his feet off the ground.

_Ah, now that's more like it._

The places of his wings that he'd broken before ached as he beat them against the air, gaining altitude; though the pain was mild discomfort compared to the agony the act of actually breaking them had been.

He propelled himself forward at Dorian, slashing at his head - but the neophyte clumsiness with which he moved was ridiculous. He was a baby bird leaving the nest for the first time in comparison to Dorian, who moved with all the grace and accuracy of an experienced hawk.

Dorian flapped away, then charged at him, nearly knocking him out of the air, but he righted himself and lashed out again. Dorian dodged, but Nightmare's swipe had left a small tear in his wing.

"You landed a blow! Fantassstic... Let'sss sssee if you can't do it again!"

Nightmare twisted out of the way as Dorian lunged again. He had to remember to continue the constant motion of flapping - but his wings and back ached from it, and he knew he wouldn't be able to keep this up for long.

Dorian, however,was not seeming to tire, and repeatedly made attempts to body-slam him, as he had no weapons, some attempts that succeeded. Nightmare was getting better at timing his movements to evade the attacks, but his rapid progress was offset by increasing fatigue.

Finally, analyzing a flaw in Dorian's technique, and desperate to end the fight, he stayed in place when Dorian rushed again, pointing his sword out at his opponent at the last possible moment. Dorian, unable to stop himself or change course, ran right into it, impaling his own abdomen.

He growled in pain, pushing himself off the blade and letting himself slowly lose altitude before landing. Nightmare dropped down ungracefully a few yards from him, but at least he had landed on his feet.

"Hhhh... Fool child... You know ssso much, and yet, you truly know ssso little..." Congealed, brownish blood dripped slowly from Dorian's open jaws.

"I believe it's time you stopped insulting me," Nightmare snapped. "You're beaten, Dorian."

Dorian laughed a horrbily wheezy, rattling laugh. "Beaten, young one. Not dessstroyed. Did you honessstly believe a wound such asss thisss would be my end?"

"I had hoped," Nightmare growled, readying himself for another battle.

Dorian laughed again. "Not today, child... The next time we meet, you will bow to the might of my massster, the true Khthon... We, hisss ssservants, have gathered enough power that he may return once more..."

"Who the hell is this 'master' of yours?"

A silent sneer. "You're already well acquainted with him."

Nightmare stared. "_Son of a bitch. _You're not serious_._"

Dorian slowly got back to his feet. "Oh, but I am. Lucifuriusss livesss once more... Even your death was not sssacrifice enoughto prevent hisss return! He ssshall make you realize your place, missserable wretch, at hisss ssservice, where you alwaysss ssshould have been!"

Nightmare stood unresponsive, paralyzed by disbelief - and fury.

Dorian leapt up, rising into the air and flying off as best he could. "Glory to the true Khthon! Lead usss to a new age, one ruled by you in all your majesssty, an age of only darknessss!"


	15. Act XIV : Septimus and Ishtar

**ACT XIV: SEPTIMUS AND ISHTAR**

"I swear, we're progressing at little more than a snail's pace," Ismaire groaned.

Megumi offered an uncertain smile. "Well, we're progressing, at least..."

Ismaire sighed. "Yes, but... goddamn, I'm going to have to smack every one of these rookies if they don't get some work done. They, collectively, have caught three criminals this week. Three! I alone caught _nine_." The man who had stricken her as undeniably familiar would have made that an even ten, but... He hadn't been much of a thief, and she didn't feel compelled to include him.

"I must say, I am surprised they haven't shaped up already," Megumi said wryly. "You generally have that effect on people."

Ismaire scoffed. "What, frightening them into doing what should already be done with threats of giving them a good flogging?"

"Something of that nature."

"Yes, well. That aside... I talked to a boy in town who claimed his family worked for you. Alexander. You know them?"

Megumi thought. "Yes, actually... The Alexander family did work as servants here before I left. They didn't take pay but rather accepted lodging within the castle as compensation for the jobs they did. Cooking, cleaning, and the like."

"Good, then let's hire them back. You can't keep this place clean all by yourself, like you've been trying to do, and Lexi may be multitalented, but culinary skills are unfortunately not on the list." Ismaire shuddered. Lexi Farrell was training to become a master blacksmith, as her father was, and simultaneously studying medicine as her late mother had. She could cook meals that were hearty and substansial, with the unfortunate inconveinence of their being unidentifiable.

Megumi laughed in agreement. "Speaking of which, it is about time for lunch, don't you think?"

Ismaire set aside her scythe and the heavy black coat she'd been wearing. "Yeah, I suppose. I'd rather just go down to the pub at the edge of town to get some food, but... You're the queen... Couldn't exactly be seen there, now could you? And I'm not going to abaondon you on account of some lousy cooking."

"Well, it's good to know I can depend on you."

Ismaire frowned. Truth be told, she was one of the only ones Megumi could depend on to treat her like a normal person amidst all this. Her servants and soldiers were still as respectful as they had ever been, but they kept their distance - almost as though they were afraid that she blamed them for the kingdom's collapse. In actuality, she blamed no one but herself.

Sut she had managed to impress even Ismaire in that she had spent no time wallowing in that guilt. She had taken charge, and was slowly starting to piece the kingdom back together - more often than not with a smile that had before been a rare sight.

A fact which Ismaire had the notion to comment on as they ate in the mess hall, observing the soldiers. "You've seemed happier lately."

Megumi was sitting straight, eating neatly in bites that seemed to have been measured out to ensure their all being of identical size. Such behavior was almost comically out of place here. She nodded at Ismaire's comment. "I have been."

Despite that, though, Ismaire had noticed that there was anxiety lurking within her happiness, too. "But you miss Clunky, eh?"

"Well, yes. Though I might have thought I did a rather good job of hiding that fact."

"Please. I know you too well. I can read you like an open book, even when no one else can." She waved a hand dismissively. "You worried about him?"

Megumi nodded.

"Well, _don't_ be. After all, if even dying before couldn't keep him down, I doubt there's much that could. Save for me, of course." Although - and it infuriated Ismaire to have to admit it to herself - that probably wasn't true anymore.

"You're right," Megumi said with a slight shrug. "I suppose if there is anything I should worry about, it could only be _you_..."

"Exactly. Although, well... Don't tell anyone I said this, but I've realized now that he may not be as bad as I originally thought."

Megumi looked up, surprised. "Really?"

"Oh, don't misunderstand... He still irritates me every time he so much as opens his mouth, sometimes even before that, and I probably will throw something damaging at his head the next time I see him, but... Well, it's like I said before, I think he's done enough by this point to prove that he really does love you, and if he's what makes you happy, then I'll tolerate him as best I can. To an extent, of course. I'm not going to cast aside the enmity just yet."

Megumi tried to hide an amused smile. "Well, don't worry about me mentioning that to anyone. Even if I told them, I don't think they'd believe it.

"Oh, well thank you very much!" Ismaire spluttered. "Honestly... You have _no_ faith in me..."

Megumi laughed. "Well, I feel it might be misplaced if I did, considering that you _have_ tried to kill him before. On _several _occasions."

"True enough. But he did bring it upon himself."

"Only in one instance that I recall."

"You're just biased," Ismaire mumbled. Her earlier frustrations had lessened now, and she was glad to be back in Sylva, the closest thing to a permenant home she had. She was glad to be back with her best friend, even if the weather here too cold and the food was bad and war was looming just around the bend.

She had to enjoy things like this while she could, she decided.

* * *

Later that same day, the guards reported a small group heading towards the castle. The seemed out of place, as Sylva was usually not somewhere one would simply wander through - nothing lay past it but mountains and desolate tundra. There were occasional seekers of knowledge who had heard of the scholars and universities within the kingdom and travelled there, so General Kalen Bashkir assumed this was the case when the guards informed him of the travellers.

However, when the mysterious group arrived at the castle gates, that explanation was rendered null and void.

The General was a man of about fifty with greying dark blonde hair and cold grey-blue eyes. He had served in Sylva's military since he was a boy, but some of the other soldiers, including his own niece, had begun to question his loyalty to the kingdom. He often spoke of overthrowing the queen and restructuring the government of the kingdom - a fact others found odd, seeing as he had taken absolutely no action and made no attempt to govern when the kingdom had been abandoned.

As well as his loyalty, they questioned his sanity.

He stood guard at the castle gates when the travellers approached, and one look at them told that they were no ordinary group of vagabonds. There was a man, a woman, and a boy, and all had the air of royalty about them.

The man stepped forward. "Ah, good day... I don't suppose an audience with the queen may be possible?"

Kalen looked closely at each of them. "Only if you first inform me as to who you are and why you are here."

"My apologies. We are her fellow Elementals. I am Malklith, and this is Gambit and Calstifer."

Kalen slowly stepped aside, motioning for them to follow the other guard. "I warn you, it may be a long wait. She's been rather preoccupied as of late."

"Of course."

They followed the guard in and stood silently in the main hall as a messenger was sent to inform Megumi of her guests. A few moments later, she stepped in to greet them.

"Malklith, Calstifer, Gambit...! You never informed me you'd be coming here."

Malklith smiled impishly, blue eyes lit up with mischief. "We thought we'd surprise you."

He was attired as he usually was - in a word, lavishly. He wore a long red coat hemmed with threads of gold, and his long blonde hair was tied back in a dark blue velvet ribbon. Clearly, he was royalty, and he wanted all who beheld him to know it.

"I wasn't expecting you'd come. Not now..."

Malklith gave an astonished gasp of mock-hurt. "Oh my, I wasn't aware we were such unpleasant company."

Megumi frowned at him. "Oh, that is quite enough of your melodramatics, Malklith. I am happy to see you as always." She smiled, turning and stooping to hug the boy next to him. "And you as well, Gambit, of course."

He looked about thirteen, although somewhat small for his age. His messy hair was a dark ash-blonde, and his eyes were a dull golden color. Megumi could tell immediately that Malklith had dressed him - he wore a black coat decorated with embroidery in the same color of his eyes. He looked thoroughly uncomfortable in such fancy attire. He was used to tattered canvas shirts with dented battle armor over them.

He returned the embrace but quickly pulled back. "It' been a long time since I saw you last... Tell me, do I look like I've grown since then?"

"Of course," Megumi lied, tousling his hair.

"Megumi," the woman behind them said in greeting, stepping forward.

Megumi's smile vanished, but was immediately replaced with a false one. "Hello... Calstifer."

Calstifer did not return the expression. Though she did always look to be permenantly scowling, this time there was something colder and harsher about the way she looked at Megumi. And yet, at the same time, there was something like pity in her peircing crimson eyes.

Breaking the silence that had descended over the group, Ismaire bounded up to them. "Well, if it isn't Calstifer, Gambit, and the Princess."

Malklith, who was more than used to Ismaire's demeaning nicknames, just scowled. "Hello, Ismaire."

Calstifer glanced over. "Yes, hello, Ismaire. Perhaps you could wait here and catch up with Malklith and Gambit? I have to speak with Megumi for a moment."

Ismaire raised an eyebrow. "...Of course."

Calstifer turned to walk down the hall to her right, and Megumi knew well enough to follow her without having to be told as much.

They came to a small conference room and Calstifer opened the door and walked in without waiting for Megumi. Megumi slowly stepped in after her, shutting the door. Neither of them spoke for a while. The silence was maddening.

Finally, Calstifer sat down. "So... You've returned. I didn't think you would."

Megumi remained standing by the door. "You knew I was alive, though."

"Yes."

"And you let my kingdom fall to ruin, without bothering to find someone to rule in my stead or find me and inform me I was still needed here?" Her words were an accusation, but her tone came too weak for them to have the desired effect.

"You wouldn't have come back," Calstifer countered.

"I would have if I knew there would be no one to take my place." When Megumi had left Sylva, she had done so with the impression that Calsifter would find a replacement to rule the kingdom, as was her duty.

And there was no excusing it - Calstifer had failed in her duty. She looked away uncomfortably. "I didn't like the idea of replacing you."

"So you did nothing."

"I..." Calstifer hastily changed the subject. "That isn't what I came here to speak with you about."

Megumi looked at her expectantly.

"As I'm sure you are already aware, Azoth is preparing for war. Against anyone... who opposes him, or that he feels in a threat to the balance of the Order. And..."

"What?"

"Right now, do you know who he considers to be the greatest threat to the Order?"

Megumi had an idea. Still, she would ask anyway. "...Who?"

"The Khthon. Nightmare."

That confirmed what she had suspected. "And? What are you saying, Calstifer?"

Calstifer frowned, looking away. "He has to be dealt with."

"As in killed."

"Obviously. And he is too powerful for any - or even all of us - to defeat him."

"So then, what are you suggesting?" Megumi asked, her voice shaking with anger.

"Somehow, we have to prevent him from fighting back. And the only way to do so is if... you were the one to fight him-"

"_No_."

Calstifer was surprised not by the response itself, but rather by the unbridled rage behind it. Megumi turned away from her.

"Tell me something, Calstifer," she said a moment later, her voice now deathly calm. "Was this your suggestion, or Azoth's?"

"Azoth... Azoth came up with the idea, but I did not disapprove."

The door opened then, causing them both to jump.

"What the hell kind of friend are you, Calstifer? Not only do you try to get Megumi involved in a war against the man she loves, but you make it worse by declaring that she has to be the one to personally kill him?" Ismaire stood scowling in the doorway.

Calstifer stood up, glaring. "Have you been eavesdropping this entire time, Ismaire?"

Ismaire gave a roll of her eyes. "Yes. What of it? I eavesdrop all the time. It just so happens to be the best way to get information. Ad when I saw the way you were acting, I knew something was wrong."

Megumi glanced at Ismaire, then Calstifer. "What did Malklith and Gambit have to say about this?"

Calstifer sighed. "Malklith did not agree. In fact he tried several times to prevent me from coming here. Gambit, of course, sees you as an older sister, and was livid that I'd ask this of you." The way she said it suggested that she had had her doubts as well. But that hadn't prevented her from asking it anyway.

"As am I," Ismaire stated.

Megumi shook her head. "You know I would never take part in waging a war against him, much less betray him myself. I've had my doubts about Azoth for mant years now, and now I know they were justified. You can be assured that when the time comes for a war against Azoth, I will be among the opposition."

"Besides," Ismaire added as she stepped out of the room after Megumi, "if anyone's going to kill Clunky at this point, it's going to be me."

They both walked back down the hallway silently before Megumi stopped and turned around.

"Ismaire... Thank you. I know you've never liked Nightmare, and this... It means a lot to me."

"Eh, this wasn't about him, it was about you. I find the fact that Calstifer would expect such a thing of you to be a bit disturbing, actually."

"Yes, well... I appreciate it all the same." She abruptly hugged her friend. "At least I know who my real friends are."

Ismaire grumbled and awkwardly returned the gesture. "Yeah, yeah... Don't you go all sappy on me. I meant what I said earlier, you know. You still have to worry about me trying to kill him."

Megumi stepped back. "Well, I'm glad for your support anyway. Shall we go listen to Malklith chastise you for your lack of manners?"

"I'd like nothing better," Ismaire replied sarcastically.


	16. Act XV : Dawn Assailed by the Night

**ACT XV : DAWN ASSAILED BY THE NIGHT**

The fields, the soldiers, the red sky all went by in a blur as Nightmare tore his way back through the idle groups of soldiers. They scattered at seeing him approach - in this state, he was more frightening than any enemy they could hope to face. And he'd killed more of his own men in these fits of rage than had been lost in any battle.

He climbed the obsidian steps of Khanda Ura. Fury had numbed him to even the burning ache in his wings; he was itching to try and break off them again. But they were rooted to his being now, that he could not escape.

_Damn it all._

After everything he'd been made to endure, what had it amounted to? He'd accomplished not even ridding himself of Lucifurius. He had died for nothing, he'd descended into madness and gained nothing from it.

One step forward, two steps back.

But no, he thought, this time it was different... If what Dorian had said was true, Lucifurius was still weak.

And Nightmare was Khthon now. He held the power Lucifurius once had. He had the upper hand this time.

_But first things first._

Balthazar had been walking through the hall, and on seeing Nightmare, he stopped. "Excellent timing. I needed to..." He stopped, noticing the way Nightmare's shoulders were heaving and how he shook as he attempted to quell the last of his rage. "Are you alright?"

"...Fine," Nightmare answered sharply, looking away. He didn't need to inform them of what he'd learned just yet. "What did you need?"

Balthazar eyed him skeptically. "We've come to a decision on Azoth's replacement."

"Ah, good." He glanced over at Ilithyia as she approached. "So, what did you decide? We'll have to track them down and bring them here, and I assume assist in their fight with Azoth, correct?"

Ilithyia frowned. "Well, fortunately, this won't require much tracking. You're already acquainted with the one we've chosen."

"And who might that be?"

Balthazar and Ilithyia exchanged an uncomfortable glance before Ilithyia replied, "A... a human. Ismaire Uemytlach."

Nightmare stared.

After what seemed to have been an eternity, he gave a a sharp, bitter, sardonic laugh. "Hah. You _are _funny, Ilithyia."

She said nothing.

Nightmare's feigned expression of amusement faded fast. "So, this is your way of diffusing the dissent between our people and the Lucians?"

"Nightmare..."

"No. No! Unless you're attempting to instigate another damned war, this has to be the worst choice I have witnessed _anyone_ make. I am incredibly curious to know what possessed you to come to this decision." He glowered dangerously.

Ilithyia accepted his challenge. "If you would put aside your petty, childish conflicts for even a moment, Nightmare, you may be able to see the logic behind our reasoning. She holds the most potential, and is likely one of the only humans capable of defeating Azoth.

"Your second choice, then. I will not comply with this."

Angered, Ilithyia took a step forward. "Our other candidates were any of the Elementals. They have received their powers already - and accepting Azoth's would destroy them!"

Nightmare seethed. He would almost have rathered they leave Azoth in place and fight the wars as they would often come. As they would with Ismaire as well, no doubt.

At this rate, there was never going to be balance in this universe.

"Think about it, Nightmare," Balthazar said quietly. "It is time you put that conflict behind you. Or we will never accomplish anything. Will you put your own selfish discrepancies above the fate of both these dimensions?"

The last words were understood. He had no need to say them.

_One of which Megumi is in?_

Nightmare growled, clenching his fist. "Fine. I suppose I will trust you. But I do not agree. I will never agree. When this goes wrong, _you two _take the blame." He stalked off, enraged once again.

"Stubborn little bastard..." Ilithyia muttered once he was out of earshot.

* * *

Ismaire sat on the steps of the castle and looked down at the city. With order mostly reestablished by this point, there was not much left for her to do. She had been sitting in on the meetings between the Elementals, but eventually left, as the tension between Calstifer and the other three had reached an uncomfortable level. Particularly Megumi, as she avoided directly speaking to Calstifer as much as she could. Understandably so.

Even without their sudden conflict, Ismaire wouldn't have wanted to participate anyhow. Politics bored her. Granted, it was politics on the level of the divine, but politics nonetheless.

So, feeling somewhat disconsolate, she looked out over her surroundings.

"I hope some great disaster strikes. And soon," she muttered to herself.

A laugh behind her made her jump. Turning around, she saw it was only Cassius.

"Haven't you ever heard the expression 'take care what you wish for'?"

"Hello, Cassius. And yes, I have, but anything is better than sitting around with nothing to do."

"Well then, perhaps you should find something to do."

She shrugged.

"I'm willing to help you. Would you like to go for a walk?"

With a long sigh, Ismaire stood. "Alright, fine. That is better than sitting around here. And perhaps I'll catch some straggler bandit while we're at it."

Cassius raised an eyebrow. "Is bringing criminals to justice the only thing you enjoy?"

"No, but what else is there to do?"

"...Right."

They made their way through the streets, conversing a bit as they went. Though she didn't exactly demonstrate it, Ismaire was glad for the company - even if she would have rathered cathing thieves or something else interesting of the sort.

She saw something out of the corner of her eye that made her stop when they reached the outskirts of the section of the kingdom that was inhabited chiefly by the nobles. Cassius stopped behind her, following her gaze.

It was the man who'd attempted to steal from her. The one she'd thought familiar.

"Who's that?" Cassius asked.

Ismaire shook her head. "I don't know. But there's somethign about him... Does he look familiar to you at all?"

Cassius scrutinized the man, who'd not yet taken notice of them. "Not particularly... I'm not sure, perhaps something about his face..."

"Damn, this is driving me mad," Ismaire huffed. "I have no idea who he is, but I could have _sworn_ I've seen him somewhere before."

Cassius turned away so as not to attract attention. "Maybe you could ask him."

Ismaire shook her head. "No good. I ran into him once before. He tried to take my money, but I stopped him... I thought maybe I might have known him, so I asked, but... He denied it."

Cassius glanced at the man again. "Hmm. Quite a mystery we've got on our hands."

Ismaire scoffed. "Got that right."

The man turned then, noticing the two watching him. Seeing Ismaire, he scowled and slowly moved his way through the crowd of people to where she and Cassius stood.

"I'm not planning on pilfering anything else, if that's your reason for staring at me."

Ismaire straightened and returned his glare. "Not at all. Rather, it's the unresolved issue of your familiarity that's got me staring."

The man gave a frustrated groan. "I told you before... There's no way in hell you could know me. I'm a drifter. Nothing more."

"A drifter who's been here in Sylva for more than two weeks?"

He frowned more deeply. "This place is hard to leave."

That was true. This time of year, blizzards were common, and it was far more prudent to remain within the protective walls of the city than to venture outside.

But somehow, she knew that was not the reason he was still here.

"But I suppose you're right. I should be moving on. There's nothing left for me here. There hasn't been for a long time." He turned to walk away.

Ismaire recalled that she had heard something like that before.

_Try serving a god who's taken everything from you. Try living when there's nothing left to live for. There was something. There isn't anymore._

And all at once she realized.

"Megumi!" she shouted out suddenly. Cassius raised an eyebrow in confusion, and the man stopped dead in his tracks.

For a moment it seemed as though he was frozen in place. Then, slowly, he turned, a look of astonishment replacing his previously annoyed expression.

"...How...?"

"God, I don't know how I didn't see it before. You look _just like her_. I know who you are... You're her brother. You're Cullyn."

He was even more surprised now, if it was possible. "How... how did you know my name...? And... and my sister..."

"Megumi's my best friend. She mentions you every now and then."

"But... how...? It been... more than a century and a half..."

Ismaire frowned. "Ah, out of the loop, are we? Well, I don't know how much you're in on, but Megumi is the Wind Lordess. Immortal and all that."

He looked hopeful for a moment. "Then she's still..."

Ismaire nodded. "Yes. And she'll definitely want to see you. But.. How did you end up here and alive? This being the second time something like this has happened... I'm starting to wonder."

"Second time?"

"Someone else somewhat inexplicably came back from the dead. Batshit insane, so he didn't so a good job of explaining how he did it. Rifts to another dimension were involved, I think..."

"Rifts... That's what they called it. The Rift. That was how I managed to come back here."

Ismaire thought. "Hmm. Somehow I believe this is a very bad sign. But we can worry about that later. For now, we should get your reunion with your sister out of the way."

Cullyn scowled. "She won't want to see me."

Ismaire scoffed. "You jump to that conclusion after you haven't seen her in more than a hundred and fifty years? Take it from someone who's conversed with her more recently, she'll want very much to see you."

He looked skeptical. "Are you sure?"

Ismaire sighed. "No. Of course I'm sure! Stop standing there like some empty-headed fool. You're going to see her."

* * *

And so, that declaration had led them up to the castle once more, and Cassius left to find Megumi while Ismaire waited impatiently with the still astonished and nerve-wracked Cullyn.

"I promised her and Edyta I'd be there to take care of them. But-"

"Shut up. She's never mentioned that to me - I doubt she's even the slightest bit upset about it. It's understandable, you nitwit. You were _dead_."

"But..."

"Oh, for _fuck's _sake! She's your sister! Whatever the hell it is you're worried about, I am entirely sure she _doesn't care!" _Ismaire shouted, annoyed.

Cullyn remained silent after that, though Ismaire had a feeling he was glaring at her when she wasn't looking.

Not that it mattered to her. He'd realize soon enough that she was right.

The minutes dragged on and she sighed impatiently. What on earth was taking so long?

"...But I cannot see what merits being so secretive, Cassius..."

Cullyn looked up at hearing his sister's voice.

"Well, you will."

Megumi rounded the corner, frowning. "I was in the middle of..." She stopped, looking at Ismaire, and then slowly at Cullyn.

"Surprise," Ismaire offered, stepping back.

Cullyn looked uncomfortable, but he smiled. "Hello, Megumi."

She took a step forward. "Wh... What are you... How are you here?"

"I'm assuming you know more than I do by what your friend said... I managed to return here from where ever I was through something called a Rift."

"Hatheg-Kla? Why were you... No, that does not matter. I can't believe that... I never imagined I'd see you again, Cullyn." Her own smile faltered. "...There's... a lot I have to tell you."

"Good! Well then, you two catch up, and we'll all meet in the mess hall later for dinner," Ismaire declared as she walked off. "I'm damn glad we've got better cooks now."

When she and Cassius were gone, Cullyn turned back to Megumi. "...Yes, I'm afraid I've missed a good lot of things." He frowned. "Edyta. What happened to her? And... you? How did you end up here?"

"You'll have to hear the story in its entirety to understand. From beginning to end."

"Then that is what I want to hear."

"Alright." Megumi sighed. "Edyta and her family took me in after you were killed. She was devastated - for a while it was like we'd lost her too. But she came around eventually. We both did. Even so, she talked about you all the time. She always missed you."

Cullyn listened silently, expressionless, as though he were listening to an account of people he was not even acquainted with.

"I was happy with them," Megumi went on. "Edyta was like a sister to me, like she'd always been - or even a mother, sometimes. She tried to teach me how to cook and sew and behave like a proper lady, but I protested adamantly. I stood by the things you had started to teach me of swordplay and combat. I fought with the boys. I snuck off to hunt whenever I could. Edyta would never say anything, though - just sigh and disappointedly shake her head."

Cullyn gave the barest laugh. "She was quite the master of the disappointed head-shaking."

"Yes." Megumi nodded, laughing a bit as well. "Early in the autumn, the year I turned sixteen, I went out again. But I encountered no game for hours on end, when it should have been plentiful. I found out later, unfortunately, what had scared all of it off. Do you remember, before you went off to war, the rumors that were circulating?"

Cullyn thought. "Dorian... Dorian the Deserter... And that demon weapon he had, Soul Edge?"

Megumi nodded. "He had come to the village. I encountered him when I was hunting. I was ill-prepared, and he killed me."

"But..."

She cut him off. "The king of Sylva, Elemental Lord of Wind, had died a few days prior. Everything lined up... I was to become our father's replacement."

"No," Cullyn snapped. "He was not our father."

"...No, I don't suppose he does deserve to be called that," Megumi agreed with equal bitterness. "The first thing I recall after that was Edyta standing over me in hysterics, and... that man... the one who was with the soldiers who came to the village to recruit you to join the war."

Cullyn grimaced at the memory. "The one... without a face?"

"His people are called the Shadran. His name was Arion Raekyn, the Elemental Lord of Earth. He took me to Sylva, taught me how to be queen, how to rule, how to lead forces into battle. He forced me to maintain the grace and civility Edyta tried for so long to instill in me." It was interesting now, after so many years, she thought, that she knew no other way to behave. "He was... a sort of mentor. My father, for all intents and purposes."

"I see." Cullyn's voice sounded drained. "And what of Edyta?"

"She married Felix," Megumi said quietly.

"What?" Cullyn demanded. "Damn him! And the bastard had the _nerve_ to call himself my friend-"

"They were happy together," Megumi said defensively."Not... not as happy as she would have been with you, but... happy. He took good care of her."

Cullyn looked away. "And?"

"They lived a long life. Both of them. They were the first losses that truly made me come to loathe my immortality. Arion after them. And then..." She trailed off, somehow not wanting to mention Nightmare yet. Cullyn had always been, and without a doubt still was, incredibly overprotective. If she mentioned Nightmare and her relationship with him, she would likely replicate the original situation with Ismaire.

"Well," she said finally, "that doesn't matter. I'm happy to see you. You can stay here, of course, I'm sure you will get along with the others." That was until Nightmare returned, of course.

Cullyn looked distracted. "Right. I haven't got anywhere else to go, anyway."

Megumi sighed. "Cullyn, I'm sorry..."

He held up a hand. "No. Don't apologize. It's no fault of yours. I have you here, at least. And I'm sure you could benefit from me being here, even if you have been fine on your own for more than a century." He staggered over the last words; it was still difficult to come to terms with just how long it had really been. "You never could walk two feet without getting into trouble when you were little."

"Well, I am significantly better at avoiding trouble nowadays." She smiled. "There's no need to worry. You'll fit right in here."

And that, she thought, was as true a statement as there had ever been.


	17. Act XVI : Divinity's Downfall

**ACT XVI: DIVINITY'S DOWNFALL**

"So... Just when will I get that disaster?"

"You're still bored?"

"...Yes. Immensely."

Cassius sighed. "Well, have you talked to this Cullyn at all the past few days? Interesting fellow."

"Far too melancholy for my tastes. But Megumi is happy he's around, so I'm sure he'll cheer up eventually."

"Well, Megumi needed a break from everything else she's had to deal with."

"Calstifer?" Ismaire frowned. "Yes. She did."

Cassius kicked a rock down the cobbled street. "You know, it's a bit warm here, I realized."

Ismaire laughed loudly. "No, Cassius. It's freezing. It's simply half as freezing as you're used to. If you think this is warm... Well, I'll take you to my home in the desert someday."

Cassius grimaced. "Do believe I'll pass on that one, thank you."

"Oh, come on. You made me stay in your freezing hell for far longed than I'd planned. So I do believe it's payback."

"I paid you to stay, if you'll recall."

That was true. But Cassius was one of the few, or perhaps her only employer besides Megumi, whose pay for her services had been almost irrelevant.

He had paid her to stay. But that wasn't why she had stayed. She could have gone anywhere of a more forgiving climate and been paid more.

She'd stayed because Cassius was her friend.

_Well, if that isn't momentous... I haven't made a real friend in ten years._That had been Megumi.

She shrugged. "You did ask that I stay."

"True."

Ismaire had been about to say something else when a shadow passed over the peasant homes down the hill from where she and Cassius were standing. The people all gasped, pointing and shouting in awestruck terror at something in the skies above them.

Though Ismaire knew this meant danger, her heart leapt. Finally, something interesting.

Then she saw it.

"Oh..._ Shit_."

"Now what was that I said about being careful what you wished for?" Cassius hissed.

The thing circling above them, Ismaire could see as it got closer, was a dragon. And an enormous one, at that. Its wings, which must have spanned at least forty meters across, were almost entirely blocking out the sun as it swooped in and landed in a plaza up the hill from them.

"_Shit,_ Cassius. How the hell are we going to fight that?" she asked as she pushed past panicking townspeople. And..._ Damn_, her scythe was back at the castle. Today was not her day.

"We're not?" Cassius offered as he reluctantly followed after her. "You don't think perhaps this is one we could sit out? At least until we've armed ourselves?"

But Ismaire noticed something odd as they got closer. The beast kept its massive wings extended, as folding them would cause it to take off the roofs of a building or two. It didn't honestly care about damaging the city... did it?

It slowly lowered its head, and they saw as they came around the edge of the plaza that it was so its _rider_ could dismount.

Ismaire threw up her hands. "Clunky! Was such an entrance _really_ necessary? What the hell is this? Don't you have your own wings?"

Nightmare hopped down from the dragon's head with an annoyed grunt. "This," he said with a deep-set frown, "is Genarog. It was him or Tebryn."

"...Well, can't blame you there, but... still." Ismaire looked over and saw that someone else had climbed down from the beast's head. "Who's this?"

The man was a Shadran, she saw, glancing around nervously before finally settling on Ismaire. "...Named Envy for my punishment, human..."

"This is Arion Raekyn, the previous Elemental Lord of Earth," Nightmare clarified when a look of confusion came across Ismaire's face.

"Yes, yes, my name, Broken-wings... Little-Pride? Where...?" He absently started off past them, looking around as if lost.

"Well, I can see why he's friends with _you_..." Ismaire muttered. "So_ this _is Arion? I mean, I suppose it is time the universe quit taking things away from Megumi and started giving back, but... _damn_, has it done so with a vengeance."

Nightmare raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Later. Megumi will explain. So go on and find her, I'm sure that's the whole reason you're here."

"As much as I wish that was true, I'm here on business, unfortunately." His next sentence could not have been more forced. "...And it involves you."

"What? Me? What the hell for?"

"Believe me, I had no part in this decision. I protested it adamantly. But my opinion failed to matter."

"About what?" Ismaire asked again, irritated.

"We'll discuss it later." The slightest smirk dawned in his expression, and he turned back to the dragon behind him. "Go on, Genarog."

Nudging Nightmare's back with the tip of his massive muzzle, nearly knocking him over, Genarog leapt up and flapped, pounding the plaza below with a gale-force gust and gliding off to the plateaus outside the city, where he would remain until his master came to retrieve him.

"Well then, let's be moving along. After all, we are here for another reason, aren't we, Arion?"

Arion turned back to face Nightmare and nodded, following him up the steps to the castle. Ismaire watched them go with a scowl, then reluctantly began the climb.

"He's keeping me in suspense on purpose, the bastard."

Cassius offered an uncertain smile and a shrug before following after her.

* * *

"If we cannot come to an understanding, our sole remaining option is that the Order dissolve."

"Unless we all want to become suddenly embroiled in war with each other's kingdoms."

Calstifer and Malklith looked solemnly across the table at eachother. Malklith's statement had been made to sound as though all four kingdoms would be fighting against each other, but Calstifer knew what the reality of the situation would be, if it came to war. Malklith, Gambit, and Megumi against only her and her kingdom.

"Calstifer, the fact of the matter is that Azoth's plans are no longer constructive to equilibrium. Which means that his intentions are no longer the ones we have sworn to represent and carry out."

She sighed, feeling worn and tired. "Then we count ourselves among his enemies, is that it?"

"If that is what we must do."

Calstifer mulled over whether or not this was a battle she wanted to fight, but before she had the chance to decide, the door opened.

"Well, we certainly have impeccable timing."

Megumi looked over with a surprised smile. "Nightmare! I... We are in the middle of a discussion, if you wouldn't mind waiting..."

"Actually, I'm here to join the discussion." He sat down at the table. Ismaire filed in after him, followed by Arion.

The group stared in shock.

"Arion?" Calstifer rose from her seat. "What the hell..."

Megumi was not as shocked as she thought she might have been, but she still had not expected to see him again. "Arion! You've come back too, now? Nightmare, you know him?"

"We met in Lemuria. He helped me to find my way out. He's here as a member of my Council. I thought that with his experience as an Elemental, he would be a valuable participant in our talk."

Arion moved toward the table. "Little-Pride, Broken-Wings took me back to the place of all things where Quiet cannot go, and I speak and bleed and breathe again..."

Megumi realized what she was hearing from him, because she had heard a similar thing before. The language of a madman. "He didn't escape Lemuria's toll on the mind either, then."

"No. He's kept all his memories, though, fortunately."

"Well then, looks like you've got the whole little makeshift family back together again, eh?" Ismaire said to Megumi with a laugh, sitting down next to her.

Megumi nodded. "Yes. Arion is as much family as any of my blood relations."

"Alright, well, enough beating around the bush. What exactly am I here for, Clunky?"

Nightmare scowled. "I was told by my Council I was to speak with you as well as the Elementals on this matter. We Chthonians are currently caught up in the beginnings of a war with Azoth. When Z'xolkuloth was Khthon, there was balance in all three sections of Lux Lucis Obscurum, but his replacements destroyed it. Now, however, we have come to the understanding that it is Azoth himself damaging the balance this time."

"What makes you so certain you are not the root of the problem?" Calstifer asked in a hostile tone, glaring him down.

"Because I am not the one vying for all the power I can obtain, regardless of cost. Azoth is doing that. Have we met before, Calstifer, Incendia? Don't be so quick to judge."

Calstifer continued to glower dangerously, but said nothing.

"Despite our efforts, all three realms are falling into ruin. Azoth claimed the light half of the two external powers already, and makes no effort to govern that part of the realm. He's released more dark energy than Hatheg-Kla can contain, and when it becomes unstable enough, he will take my power as well. There will be no such thing as 'equilibrium' anymore."

"So what will we do?" Megumi asked.

"Azoth, obviously, can no longer reign as god over this dimension or Lux Lucis Obscurum. And neither can his position be left unattended. He must be replaced." Nightmare growled something unintelligiblle. "The Council chose Ismaire as that replacement."

"Ismaire?" Malklith exclaimed. "But... She couldn't possibly take over his place... She's a human!"

"She happens to be the _only_ human with the power and the balanced alignment to take over." Nightmare sighed loudly. "I had nothing to do with this choice. I protested it. But there is no other option."

Everyone in the room looked to Ismaire, who had remained oddly silent.

"So..." she said after a long moment of thought, "All I have to do is kill Azoth, and I, essentially, become God?"

Nightmare shook his head. "It isn't quite that simple. Azoth has a small army at his disposal. He calls them the 'Sins'. They are all the previous Elementals who became trapped in Lux Lucis Obscurum after their deaths. Azoth keeps them there as punishment for their sin and disloyalty to him. Pride, Lust, Gluttony, Wrath, Greed, and Sloth."

"The Seven Deadly Sins," Ismaire recognized. "But that was only six... What about...?"

"Envy?" Nightmare glanced over at Arion. "Well, Envy no longer serves Azoth as a Sin."

"Arion... even you?" Calstifer asked. "We looked up to you as a leader, and you too betrayed Azoth?"

Arion did not answer. If he had heard her speak, he gave no indication of it.

"Well then, we'll have to defeat all of them," Ismaire concluded.

"Yes," Nightmare confirmed. "...Are you willing to do it?"

Ismaire sat back thoughtfully. "You know, my mother always did tell me that if I was going to complain about something, I had to do something about the reason for my complaints... And who's complained about Azoth more than me?" She grinned. "What the hell. You've found yourself a new God."

* * *

"The sooner we leave, the sooner we can return again."

Nightmare thought the words sounded odd as he spoke them, as any words do when spoken too many times. It was the statement he had tried all throughout the endless, sleepless night to convince himself of. By this point, it had been rendered meaningless.

He'd barely spent a day here, his real home, and already he had to leave again.

Megumi offered an encouraging smile, sensing his reluctance. "With Azoth gone, we'll be that much closer to being able to preserve balance - it will be better for the world as a whole. Though I doubt Calstifer would agree." She leaned in against his shoulder. "Just... Be careful."

"Save your worry for later. Azoth is a small obstacle compared to what will come later." He still hadn't said anything about Lucifurius's supposed return yet, obviously Megumi had enough cause for concern without knowing about that.

"Still... He will not give up his throne without a fight." Megumi leaned to see around him and called out, "You as well, Ismaire. Be careful."

Ismaire cast another suspicious glance at Genarog before shouting back, "Yeah, of course. Think I'll let that pathetic excuse for a god get the best of me?"

Megumi suppressed a laugh. At least Ismaire was confident in herself as ever.

Ismaire finished packing away the last of her supplies in her small rucksack and watched Nightmare and Megumi finish off their goodbyes with a frown. She couldn't keep herself from momentarily feeling a pang of jealously towards them, and what they had - she herself found it difficult even to fathom such complete devotion to any one person.

What must it have been like, she wondered, to adore someone that much, to a point where simply being with them made you happier than anything else could, and even the deepest madness ceased to matter?

The envy vanished, though, just as quickly as it had come on, and she found herself thinking it ridiculous.

"Oh, good, you're still here. I thought you'd have left by now."

She looked up to see Cassius standing in front of her, looking groggy and disheveled, as though he had just woken up - which he most likely had, as the sun had not yet risen.

She stood. "Well, we were about to. What did you need?"

"Just wanted to wish you good luck, and bid you farewell. See, if you're going to become God, I figured it would be best to start out on your good side."

She laughed at him. "It isn't going to be like that, Cassius. My power won't be that absolute. Weren't you listening when Clunky explained this?"

"Ah, well, I want to stay on your good side nonetheless." He smirked and gave a bow.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, I suppose you being almost an Elemental of sorts, I will be in charge of you. Won't have to worry about me complaining of boredom anymore, eh?"

"I should hope not. But I hope you can still find time for your friends among your new responsibilities."

"Of course."

"Well, looks like you're ready to leave. Goodbye, then - and good luck. Godspeed, as they say." Cassius snickered at his own joke.

Ismaire was not impressed, but had to smile anyway. "Thank you, Cassius."

Genarog shifted impatiently as Nightmare approached, Arion following slowly behind him.

"Let's get moving," he muttered, and Genarog spread his wings and took off, nearly causing a sonic boom as he flapped.

"He's not going on foot, then? What if someone sees him?" Ismaire asked, dusting herself off.

"Well, people need some story to scare their children into behaving, now that the Azure Knight isn't wandering around anymore."

"...I suppose."

Nightmare was no longer the Azure Knight, but the way he made the jest suggested he was not ashamed of his past as a murderer.

As over the edge as he already was, he probably couldn't afford to be.


	18. Act XVII : Dead Reckoning

**A/N: **Please excuse the blatant _Princess Bride _reference in this chapter.

* * *

**ACT XVII: DEAD RECKONING**

"You could say something, you know. This silence is beginning to get the slightest bit irritating."

They had been walking like this for two days now, with Nightmare trudging on ahead in front, seemingly having forgotten Ismaire was even there. Arion kept up falteringly, sometimes stopping as if he had forgotten how to move, then rushing frantically to catch up. He sometimes muttered nonsensical phrases to himself, but other than that, everyone on the trek had thus far remained silent.

Ismaire was beginning to wonder if Nightmare had heard her at all before he grumbled in reply, "What do you expect me to say?"

"I don't know, but ignoring the existence of your travelling companions is impolite. If I have to be forced to be around you, I at least expect you to be civil about it."

"I've seen nothing from you that merits my civility. I decided instead not to speak."

Ismaire rolled her eyes. "If you really wanted me to take over for Azoth-"

"I _don't_," Nightmare snapped, stopping suddenly. "But my opinion on the matter was meaningless. It was not my decision to make. Were you _deaf_ for the other thousands of times I've made that point?"

Ismaire continued on ahead of him. "Clunky, I've tried to put our past conflicts aside. You're the one keeping them alive now."

"You may not be as verbal now, but nothing's changed. You hate me as much now as you always have. Know that the feeling is mutual."

Arion had stopped beside him, ears flattened. "B-broken-Wings..."

Nightmare ignored him and strode forward again. "I'm afraid for this universe if it's to be ruled by someone who would start a war for no valid reason."

"I _had_a valid reason when I started this one, which you for some reason can't seem to let go of. Besides, I really don't think some imbecilic _child _is in any place to talk down to-"

She'd barely finished turning around to face him when a split-second reflex saved her from losing her head.

"_Don't...you...dare..._ call me a _child_." The obsidian zweihander was clenched in Nightmare's fist, centimeters above Ismaire's head, where she'd ducked.

She stared, dumbfounded. Since when had he been that fast?

"You surpass me in years, yes, but you haven't looked into the eyes of the Omniverse. You have not seen the things I have seen. You have _no idea_. And you have the _nerve _to call me an imbecilic child?"

Ismaire realized now that she'd crossed the line, and now there was nothing she could say, or at least that she would be willing to say, that would prevent a fight between them. That display of speed she'd just seen had her a bit concerned, but all she could really think was _Finally_.

"This universe alone is infinitely vast," he continued. "You wouldn't _believe_. Think of the most fantastical, unbelievable world, and I guarantee you that somewhere, somewhere in this endless tangle of threads we call the Omniverse, it exists. There are an infinite number of beings in its memories. They die. The have children. Their children die. The children of their children have children, and all those children die. _Endless_." He held out his hands as if to emphasize the sheer enormity of what he was talking about.

He was an absolute raving lunatic. She hadn't really realized the extent of it before, perhaps because he was so good at putting up a front of almost-lucidity at times.

"Take this universe alone. All the sentient beings that have ever existed in it, ever thought that ever came into existence in their fickle minds, every pain, every sensation they've ever felt, every sight ever seen, has been integrated as a part of _my_ memory now. I am intimately familiar with the minds of mathematicians and philosophers, all the greatest of intellects and inquirers. I know all the answers they sought after. And that... that's only a sliver of how incomprehensibly endless it all is! You can't even begin to _imagine_ it, can you? None of it was meant to be known by beings like me, it was for the minds of only the oldest beings, but I...I... He took me there and then _she_..." He spat out the pronoun like it was poison. "-made me look upon it all, keep it in my memory, and I..."

He stopped and inhaled sharply, shaking. He remembered what his original point had been.

"I know all these things. You do not. And you... you stand here and mock me and talk down to me and you call me a _child_! You think yourself _superior_! Learn what I have, and _then_ we will stand as _equals_!"

Ismaire lunged out of the way as he made another swipe at her, again surprised at his speed. There was an odd lack of purpose in his movements, all too spasmodic and uncoordinated. Even so, it was clear from the frenzied glint of his eyes that he intended to kill her.

She whipped her scythe around to catch him in the arm, but his reflexes were quicker now than she remembered and it left only the barest scratch. He countered with a chain if attacks that she had to move more quickly than ever before to dodge. Each was only avoided by the barest degree.

He finished off with a powerful upward stroke that she leaned to avoid, but still left a shallow gash in her shoulder. She had overstepped in trying to dodge and now fell back, catching herself on her hand.

He'd landed a blow. It was more a blow to Ismaire's pride than anything, but he had injured her nonetheless.

Inconceivable.

Taking advantage of this momentary distraction, Nightmare leapt up and caught himself on his wings, rising far above the ground before folding them and allowing himself to drop like a stone, sword pointed straight down.

_Oh, damn, damn, damn._

Ismaire gritted her teeth and scrambled to get away, barely avoiding being impaled. Nightmare hauled his sword up from where it was embedded in the damp earth and whirled around to strike again. Ismaire had been expecting it this time, though, and lunged forward, swinging her weapon out and managing to leave a gash across his torso. It was a deep wound, and she expected him to falter, but he continued forward, shoulder out, as if to bodyslam her. He managed to knock her back enough that she staggered rather violently into a tree behind her, scraping her forehead against the rough bark.

She swore under her breath and ducked when he swiped at her again, leaving his blade embedded in the tree she'd run into.

He wrenched it free with minimal difficulty and swung around, too quick to dodge this time, and delivered a stirke to her arm with the flat of the blade that was so forceful everything below her elbow went numb for a few moments.

She backed away as he did, both contemplating their next move. This was not going as she'd planned.

Ismaire was the first to move again, swiping her scythe up at his head, missing as he leaned to the side, countering with a swing at her legs that she jumped to evade. She went for his malformed arm this time, but he twisted it around and caught the scythe blade in his claws. She jerked it back, rending through his palm.

This had to end soon, or one of them would be dead.

Ismaire was increasingly concerned that she would not be the victor if this went on much longer.

She advanced, attacking now almost as erratically as he had, forcing him back until he was backed into a tree. He moved again to bring the sword down on her head and she gripped the scythe pole, parrying the strike.

_Now_. She had a chance to end this.

She took one step forward and jammed the pole up against Nightmare's throat, pinning him. She felt something crack.

A long moment passed.

She briefly thought that she had broken his neck before he let his weapon slip from his hand and reached up to push the scythe handle away. But his exhaustion had all caught up with him at once, and all he could do was weakly grip the handle, fighting for breath.

"_Off," _he choked out once he managed to find his voice again. "_Get...off_."

Ismaire let out a sharp laugh. "When you might try to pull more of this bullshit? I'm not _stupid_, Clunky, even if you're convinced I-" But Ismaire stopped when she realized that it was over, and she'd won. He'd given up. He was at her mercy yet again. He couldn't even push the scythe away to keep it from suffocating him and his pupils were going to pinpricks as he struggled against it.

She quickly stepped back, letting him stagger forward and fall. "...Sorry."

He eyed her skeptically before getting to his feet again. His eyes were dull, drained of the mad glint they'd had earlier. He was covered in blood from the curving slash across his chest - must have been deeper than she thought - and his exhausted panting was wheezy from where the scythe handle had pressed into his windpipe.

Ismaire took a moment to catalogue her own injuries. Gash on the shoulder, scraped forehead, and a throbbing bruise on her arm that she was sure was going to be an ugly shade of purple when she looked at it later.

She'd_ still _gotten off better than he had, she thought with a dash of smugness.

She turned her attention back to him then, realizing that she had actually done serious damage. True, he may have deserved it, he may have started the fight, but they were supposed to be allies and she decided to try to alleviate this conflict, once and for all.

"Look," she started uncomfortably, not sure if he was actually listening. "There's no reason to continue this meaningless war of ours. It started over... heh, what? Me, thinking you didn't deserve to be with Megumi? That ship has sailed. With the position I'll soon be in, it would be in both of our best interests to stop this nonsense and at least_ try _to get along."

It was clear from the look on his face that he believed that about as much as she would have if he'd been the one saying it. But their fighting was childish, and she had to admit that she had played her part in perpetuating it right along with Nightmare.

She sighed. "_Try_. Agreed?"

He glowered weakly for a moment before reluctantly replying in a raspy, broken tone, "Fine. Agreed."

"Only try, of course. I can't guarantee I'll always be able to restrain myself."

"Neither can I."

"Then we're at an understanding."

"Absolutely."

Nightmare coughed, wiping away the bit of blood that came up with a frustrated growl.

"...And I _am _sorry," Ismaire mumbled, barely audible. "I didn't mean to rough you up _that_ badly. You going to live?"

He scoffed.

"Well, I suppose that's a yes," she grumbled, scowling. "I didn't come out unscathed either, you know."

Nightmare glared. That may have been true, but she'd still beaten him. Badly. Even if he had been close to defeating her.

Arion slowly approached the two, ears flat against his head, looking distressed. "N-no more silence calling... Quiet was lying, no more silence calling until the All-Watcher and..." He trailed off, flinching.

"This wasn't the same." Nightmare stepped past him to sit on a stump and catch his breath.

They sat in silence for a long time, simultaneously glancing at eachother every once in a while.

"What are you doing?" Ismaire asked.

"Communication." Nightmare tapped his forehead. "Easier to talk this way. Not so much filtering and distortion."

Ismaire figured this meant they were passing direct thoughts into eachother's minds. "Well." She turned around. "We _are_still going to fight Azoth, then?"

"We don't have much choice at this point."

"Well, it's not as if I could tell what you two were saying to eachother. I don't speak insane." Ismaire then sighed, issuing herself a silent reprimand. Her agreement to be less hostile was not getting off to a good start.

"...I suppose we'll just keep going, then." Seemingly having forgotten about the bleeding gash in his chest, which even now looked marginally less severe than it had minutes earlier due to his accelerated healing, Nightmare stood. He took a moment to discern which direction they were headed before moving forward once again without bothering to ensure his companions followed.

"So glad for the enthusiasm," Ismaire grumbled sardonically. For a split second she wished she would have gone ahead and finished him off when she had the chance.

* * *

"This is the gateway to Hatheg-Kla?" Ismaire asked, peering over the edge of the chasm they had come across. "Looks like an ordinary hole in the ground to me."

"That would be the point," Nightmare replied.

Ismaire kicked a rock over the edge, watching it disappear into the blackness below. "So we climb down, then? What's at the bottom?"

"There is no bottom." Nightmare dove over the edge, wings folded, and Arion scrambled down after him with surprising agility for a man who could barely walk a straight line.

"Right..." Ismaire started down herself, finding plenty of hand and foot holds on the jagged face of the rock. The angle it was sloped at in some places, however, still made her nervous.

She wondered how far down the chasm went - that wasn't much of a concern for Nightmare, the selfish bastard, with those damn wings of his - she knew she would tire quickly if she had to keep this up. She looked over her shoulder to see if Nightmare or Arion were anywhere close, only to discover that they'd already been swallowed up by the dark maw of the abyss.

She scoffed. "Some manners you've got, the two of you, leaving me here-"

As she spoke, she stepped down - but there was no foot hold this time, and she slipped clear off the face of the rock.

It took her a moment to realize she was falling, another to realize that she still had no idea how far she had to fall, and yet another to realize that it could in fact be a _very_ long way.

After what seemed like an eternity she noticed that she had stopped falling. She hadn't landed and nothing had caught her - she had simply stopped.

Dust and shards of rock had accumulated in a suspended carpet as though there were some surface there to support them, but past that Ismaire could clearly see that the chasm continued.

When she tried to move, it was as though she was doing so on a stretched-out cloth; she felt off-balance and wobbly.

She realized after a moment of pondering what was causing this.

Gravity, on the other side, was reversed.

She reached through the barrier to pull herself back onto the face of the rock and climb the opposite direction, clinging tightly to it as a wave of vertigo hit. Once she had steadied herself, she kept climbing, towards the reddish glow above her.

When there was just enough light for her to see herself, she noticed a smokelike black aura surrounding her. She wondered what it was but dismissed her curiosity for the moment when she reached the top of the narrow canyon and pulled herself up over the edge. Nightmare and Arion waited there, Nightmare with an expression of impatient annoyance.

"Thanks for waiting up," Ismaire grumbled. She gestured to the aura surrounding her. "What's this?"

"The result of a barrier I created," Nightmare explained as though it were the simplest thing in the world. "Otherwise the dark energy of this realm would overpower your essence and kill you."

"Ah." Ismaire started to walk away, but realized that this deserved some expression of appreciation. "Well, thanks."

He gave the barest shrug of acknowledgement, waiting as Genarog hauled his massive body up through the chasm. Ismaire had almost forgotten the beast had been following them. He gave a happy cry and nudged Nightmare affectionately before starting across the barren field ahead of them, almost knocking over the entire group with his tail. Arion stiffened nervously and unsteadily followed after him.

In spite of herself, Ismaire smirked. "Clumsy newt doesn't realize his own size, eh?"

"Never has," Nightmare replied, walking along after them.

Ismaire had been under the impression, upon first seeing the reddish glow cast over everything by the dim sun, that this place would be warm, like a bed of coals - but it was quite the opposite, cold and desolate like a tundra.

They walked on until Khanda Ura was visible in the distance. Ismaire felt like making a snide comment about the size of the place, but then remembered that Nightmare had inherited the massive fortress along with his forced sentence of godhood - it wasn't overindulgence. He probably didn't spend much time within its walls anyway.

Genarog stopped at the city gates when they reached them, as he was too big to enter. Past the gate, the city was inhabited only by Shadrans, all who nudged eachother and made hasty attempts to bow when they saw Nightmare approaching. He paid them no mind, not even seeming to notice they were there at all. His footsteps had become almost mechanical.

Arion looked up at him every few seconds. Ismaire had a feeling they were "conversing".

She rolled her eyes. "Speaking madness again?"

"I said before, it is the easiest method of communication."

She left it at that as they reached the steps of the fortress. Nightmare walked up the the glistening black stone doors and opened them, stepping in.

"Stopping for a break?" Ismaire asked.

"Only until we've gathered the rest of the group. The less time Azoth has to prepare, the better off we'll be."

Nightmare turned abruptly to a kneeling Shadran guard and said something in a language Ismaire didn't recognize. The guard nodded and rushed off.

A few minutes later, Ilithyia and Balthazar entered the room. They looked human enough, Ismaire thought, but something about their presence seemed deeper, more ancient than any human she had met.

Ilithyia stepped forward. "You are Ismaire Uemytlach?"

"Who else would Clunky have dragged down here?"

She smirked. "Well, it would seem you've no nerves to speak of. I am Ilithyia, Witch-Queen of Mytos Ku'un, and this is my husband Balthazar. We are close allies and mentors to Nightmare. We were the ones who chose you for the task of replacing Azoth."

The way she said the words did not suggest an expression of thanks in return, rather, she seemed almost apologetic.

Ismaire reciprocated with a shrug, "I challenge you to find one who's more willing than me to do this. I can't count the number of times I've said the things I would do differently, were I in Azoth's position. And a chance to finally be able to do them... I don't intend to pass it up."

"You are confident in your abilities, then?"

"I'm not going to lose."

"Excellent."

"We would offer you equipment, but you haven't the time to get used to it, and at this point, it could be potentially devastating for you to be put off balance by a new weapon," Balthazar stated.

Ismaire shrugged. "I know. I trust my scythe, and I aim for speed, so I don't wear any heavy armor."

"Azoth himself is not the strongest of combatants, but you should still exercise caution."

"Of course. I'm confident, but I'm not stupid. I do not intend to lose."

Balthazar nodded and stepped aside as Tebryn, Adramellach, and Tethys joined them.

"Ready when you are, Chief," Adramellach said to Nightmare. Ismaire saw Tebryn noticeably flinch at his informal address, and snickered.

"Well, no need to waste any more time than we have. Let's go. If we leave now, we'll be at the Borderlands before nightfall, and by the time we reach the heart of Lux Lucis Obscurum, we Chthonians will be at our most powerful. We'll need that, in order to defeat Azoth's Sins," Nightmare stated.

"Indeed we will," Ilithyia agreed.

"Well, time to hit the road, then." Ismaire started towards the door with the rest of the group.

Nightmare waited behind them. "Arion."

Arion's ears twitched at the tone in his voice. "Broken-wings?"

"I've deeply considered leaving you behind on this expedition. We need your power, but only if you will be able to lend it."

Arion did not respond.

"You know who you will have to face."

Arion flinched.

"Can I trust you not to lose focus? To stay on our side? Can I trust you not to be Envy?"

After another long moment of silence, Arion slowly nodded. "Won't turn, Broken-Wings, I have no Envy anymore, Envy is gone, gone with quiet, I won't call silence to the other side."

"...Then I will trust you."

But Nightmare wondered, as they made their way to the heart of Lux Lucis Obscurum, if Arion truly possessed the resolve to kill his oathbrother a second time.


	19. Act XVIII : Gogh and Magogh

**ACT XVIII: GOGH AND MAGOGH**

As the group made their way over the hills that ran along the border of Lux Lucis Obscurum and Hatheg-Kla, the skies turned from blood red to amarinthine, and Ismaire could see a widening strip of violet in the distance. At the foot of the hills was an obsidian wall, parted by a massive gate.

Numerous figures were gathered around it. She moved to take another step forward to see better, but was intercepted by Ilithyia.

"Wait. Balthazar, are those...?"

Balthazar squinted into the dsitance, giving a slight grumble. "Yes."

"Why are they here? They're rarely seen outside Tahnorona..."

Ismaire raised an eyebrow. "What are they?"

"Gorrs," Tebryn answered her, his voice an angry hiss. "Traitorous monsters. They were banished to the other side of Lemuria for their crimes. They demonstrate quite a bit of nerve, venturing away from their homes." He turned to Nightmare. "Khthon, your orders?"

Nightmare seemed to contemplate the question for a moment, a brief moment of frustration crossing his expression. But once it had gone, he was left looking vaguely uninterested in the situation.

"What else? We move forward."

He went on ahead, the rest of the group reluctantly following.

"So what exactly were they exiled for?" Ismaire inquired as she cautiously climbed down the steep, gravelly face of the hill.

"As a race, they declared war on Khanda Ura," Nightmare answered. "Z'xolkuloth defeated and exiled them to the place beyond Lemuria. But they thrived there, built their own kingdom, Tahnorona, centered on whatever they could do to disrespect their former ruler. Their entire culture is built on their disloyalty. They did, however, form an alliance with the Khthon after Z'xolkuloth, Skulthur. He was the only one they had any respect for."

"So, they're not too fond of you, then."

"Not particularly. Not many are, though."

Ismaire could see, as they neared the gate, that the creatures guarding it were huge - the shortest was a full two taller than Nightmare. They were clad in heavy tunics, made of some beast's hide, that hid most of their leathery grey-blue skin from view, excluding their faces. Their features were marred and twisted, looking as though someone had attempted to mold them over a badly damaged skull. Rows of horns ran from the top of their foreheads down the necks of the beasts, half-hidden by tresses of greasy black hair, braided or in dreadlocks.

The largest one, standing at least eleven feet tall from what Ismaire could discern, stepped forward once they had come to a stop before the gate. A sound halfway between a cough and a growl emanated from his throat - after a moment, the sound could almost be interpreted as what it was - he was laughing.

"Quite the little army you've brought along with you, little Khthon. You expect us to let you pass?"

"My will is law in this realm," Nightmare stated simply, almost nonchalantly.

"These are the _borders_ of your realm," the assumed leader sneered, and the rest erupted into mocking laughter.

Ismaire expected Nightmare to get angry and lash out, perhaps attack one of them, but he remained in place, eerily calm, and stated, "You _will_ allow me through."

"I take orders from only myself, child. I do nothing I do not wish to," the Gorr stated with finality, crossing his arms over his chest.

Nightmare remained in place, staring him down. For a long moment the Gorr seemed to be comtemplating attacking him, a hand on the axe hanging from his belt, but then he stepped back. The others tensed, watching him carefully.

Ismaire realized at once what he was doing - the same thing he'd done to the pompous innkeeper. Infiltrating the Gorr's mind.

"...N-no, no- _Stop_-"

"_Let. Me. Through_."

The Gorr shook his head, backing away further. "_Go... go..."_

Nightmare held his fearful gaze a moment longer before a smug smile overtook his previously threatening expression. "Glad you saw it my way." He stepped past the rest of the bewildered group, through the gate.

"Nicely done, boss," Adramellach commented. "Wasn't looking forward to having to get my hands dirty."

"Worthless exile scum," Tebryn spat. "Had you given the orders I would have dispatched them all."

"No need," Nightmare said with a shrug. "Better to force them to submission with fear than waste time we don't have killing them."

"Although the question of why they were there still remains. We will have to look into that," Balthazar said with a frown.

As they walked on the violet was soon all that remained of the sky, the deep red a fading line in the distance. The sky might have been black as pitch but it was glittering with so many stars that most of it was lit up to a deep purple, fading into areas of inky darkness where the light of the stars could not penetrate.

"This is it, then? Lux Lucis Obscurum?" Ismaire asked.

"Yes."

"Our realtions with this place were peaceful ones, once," The Shadran woman, who had introduced herself as Tethys, added. "Z'xolkuloth and Azoth considered eachother allies. Skulthur and Lucifurius later destroyed this trust, but it has been clear to us over the past few years that they were not the only ones in the wrong. Azoth seeks complete control."

"He believes himself fit to rule all three realms: Hatheg Kla, Lux Lucis Obscurum, and Kyeriona, as well as the human world," Nightmare added.

"But different rulers are necessary - You explained that to me before. To ensure everything stays balanced." Ismaire frowned. "There's no ruler for the light half anymore, is there?"

"No, but that is the least of our problems. The dark is what goes rampant without a weilder to restrain it. The light power is stable, quiescent for the most part. After everything else is taken care of, we can appoint a ruler."

"Right..."

Ismaire looked around. The landscape was beginning to become less barren as they walked on; A dense carpet of mosses and ferns, a deep sea-green color, was now beneath their feet. Tiny purple flowers peppered the ground as though they'd been carelessly scattered around, growing more densely around the shallow river that wound through the slight hills of the field.

They began to encounter scattered abandoned dwellings. They were primitive huts of stone, empty, as though nothing had ever lived here at all.

"We're almost to the city," Ilithyia announced.

Ismaire glanced over. "Really? Looks pretty desolate to me."

"Of the three parts of this dimension, the center is the most sparsely populated. Shadrans who do not ally themselves with the Khthon and Luminities who do not ally themselves with the Elathea typically come here. However, as this is seen as dishonorable in both cultures, few choose to come here."

"Azoth's only real citizens are the Sins," Nightmare stated. "Though even they are not entirely loyal to him."

Arion's ears twitched and flattened as he said this. "...Pride won't turn."

* * *

By the time they had reached the crest of the hill they were climbing, Ismaire could make out a magnificent palace in the distance. Before it was sprawled a great city, surrounded by walls of marble, a swirling pattern of black and white. Once they had made their way into the metropolis, Ismaire saw that it looked to be entirely abandoned.

"Once we reach the palace, you should try to defeat Azoth as quickly as possible. He is not a combatant, but he has other ways to fight. He hides in different forms, invulnerable. Only his original form can be killed," Nightmare explained. "Leave the Sins to the rest of us. I imagine some will be willing to negotiate, but we will fight them if need be."

"Do you think it will come to that?" Ismaire asked.

"Most likely."

They stopped at the palace steps, looking up at the towering structure before them. Tethys stepped forward.

"Khthon, in order to prevent any interference from any of Azoth's loyalists who may be hiding within the city, perhaps Adramellach and I should stand guard outside."

"That would be wise," Balthazar said. "We have more than enough able fighters."

"You two stay here, then," Nightmare agreed reluctantly.

Leaving them to stand guard, the rest of the group conitnued on. They entered a large, open hall, headed by a throne. Six figures stood by it, three on each side. They might almost have appeared to be statues.

In the throne sat who Ismaire assumed to be Azoth. His skin was a light mauve, his hair long and silver with the barest palatinate tinge. The dark aubergine of his eyes looked black in the dim light.

"Well, well." He leaned forward slowly, almost lazily, looking over the group before him. "I see you have decided to effect an early commencement of our war, Khthon."

"Quite the contrary. I am here to end it before it has a chance to begin."

Before Azoth could reply, Ismaire stepped past Nightmare and with a sort of poise only she herself could likely have mustered, she approached the throne and brought the blade of her scythe to Azoth's neck.

"Nice throne. But it'll look better with me in it," she said with a smirk.

Azoth looked confused for a moment, but then, understanding, he gave a sharp and bitter laugh. "You, a human? This is who they have chosen to fight and replace me? To think, I actually considered that they would send one more equal to my abilities! I see now that my worries were undue."

Ismaire's eyes narrowed. "Then I should prove no challenge to defeat. Get up and fight me."

Azoth returned her expression, then looked past her. "My servants... Take care of the rest of the infidels, whilst I remind this one where she stands." He looked back to Ismaire. "I am not tolerant of blasphemy. But if it is a fight you desire, then come... it is a fight you shall receive."

In a single swift movement, he was behind the throne, and without a word, he turned and started towards the door behind it.

Ismaire looked back as the Sins faced Nightmare and the rest of the group, then followed after Azoth. This was just like any other job, she told herself.

Except that this was the biggest damn job she'd ever taken on.

* * *

Nightmare stood motionless as one of the Sins approached him. He was a tall man in grey robes threaded with gold embellishments, lightly armored with greaves and gauntlets. He had golden hair, hanging in short layers in front, falling down his back in a thin braid. Nightmare could see Arion move behind him out of the corner of his eye.

"I do not appreciate threats to my master," the man stated. "Nor do I appreciate the return of a traitor."

Arion made a sound that might have been a whimper and his ears flattened.

"Khthon. _Envy_." The man rested the end of the lance in his hand against the ground. "You've come for a fight as well."

"We have, Pride."

He looked amused. "You know me, then."

"I do, Vetuailoios. At least, that is what my people call you. Arion has told me much about you."

Pride stepped forward. "Arion has, has he? My daughter hasn't bothered to mention me?"

"An unrealistic expectation, as she never knew you."

"Which was entirely the fault of my dear friend Envy here. He kept the fact of her existence from me after the death of my wife and son."

"D-didn't deserve," Arion interrupted. He flinched after he said it, as though he expected to be punished.

Pride's eyes narrowed dangerously. "What was that?"

Arion shook his head. Nightmare took a step forward. "What he means is that Megumi deserves a far better father than you could ever hope to be."

"Oh? And I assume he thinks himself fit for the role?" Pride asked, mockery in his tone.

"Far more fit than you," Nightmare answered.

The tip of the lance was pointed at his head now. "I will destroy both of you. I won't allow you to continue poisoning the heart of my daughter. Envy, your sin runs rampant. You are not fit for our master's service."

Arion said nothing in retaliation. The words seemed to wound him.

"Take care of the rest of them."

When the rest of the Sins did not respond, he turned around. "...Did you hear me? Go. Fight them. They are threats to the Order."

Still none of them made any move to do so. Pride gritted his teeth.

"You mark yourselves each and every one as traitors. Well, no matter. Azoth will see to it that you are punished for your disloyalty." He turned again to face Nightmare and Arion. "While I will revel in glory, the only one who remained loyal."

* * *

Ismaire continued down the dark hallway for a long while before coming to an enormous, open room, dimly lit by a chandelier of candles. Azoth stood at the room's center, waiting.

"You still believe you can defeat me?"

Ismaire straightened. "Yes. I do. I've had my doubts about you for years; I know now, too well, that they were valid, and I can't allow you to stay in power."

Azoth raised an eyebrow. "You believe you can do better? You think me corrupted? It is I who keeps the balance of the world, human. I formulated the plan for the defeat of Lucifurius and the redistribution of power... A plan, that, had certain pawns stayed dead as they were supposed to, would have succeeded."

Ismaire scoffed. "What, so you _planned_ for Nightmare to die? Knowing full well, I suppose, what that would do to Megumi, a priestess of_ your_ Order."

"Sacrifice is necessary. And when given a pawn that serves no other purpose, what are you to do?"

Ismaire stepped forward. "And who the fuck do you think you are to decide what _purpose_ anyone serves? I don't care if you're a god, the world is not your plaything, and the people in it are not your _pawns_ to send to die as you please!"

"To think that a human would seek to chastise me..."

Ismaire whipped her scythe around. "I'm done talking. Get over here and fight like the almighty you _claim_ to be."

Azoth smirked. "Eager for defeat? Very well."

Ismaire parried expertly as Azoth attacked - with a scythe identical to her own. When she looked up, a mirror image of herself stood before her. She gave an irrtated hiss.

"If you think some stupid trick like that is going to stop me, you're sadly mistaken."

The scythe turned to a lance, and now it was Megumi in front of her. "Somehow, I will lower your guard." It was Megumi's voice that spoke, but with a supercilious tone that Ismaire knew she never would have heard from her friend.

"Give me some credit. I'm not _stupid_."

Megumi's face became her brother's, the lance less ornate. "Ah, but humans always lose their composure, with enough confusion. I'll just keep putting on faces until you don't know what you're fighting anymore." He pushed forward with a chain of attacks that Ismaire countered and parried and dodged. Neither had yet landed a blow.

Again his countenance shifted, this time to that of Nightmare, but the leering smirk called Lucifurius to Ismaire's mind.

"You picked too easy a target," she snarled, slashing across and leaving a gash over his face. "You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that."

The gash below his eyes faded and the blood seemed to hae evaporated. "Still haven't put that one behind you, have you?"

Ismaire snorted. "I'm working on it. Would have been easier to resist if your imitation wasn't so poorly done."

He gave a sneer that Ismaire was quite sure she wouldn't have seen from Nightmare any time other than the days he was a puppet to Lucifurius. "We'll see."

He lunged at her, attacking with precise, measured movements and a sort of fluid grace that was almost comically unlike the real Nightmare's erratic and spasmodic style of combat.

Ismaire stopped for barely a second when the mismatched eyes turned both mazarine, the long red hair turned short and blonde, and the face was then that of Cassius.

"You faltered!" he taunted, swinging Cassius's double-bladed spear at her head. She ducked and swept her scythe into his side.

"Again, a second-rate imitation. _My_ Cassius would never act like such a coniving bastard... And he happens to be much better looking than you make him ou to be."

"Soft spot for this one, hm?" They continued the chain of battle and eventually Azoth grew tired of wearing Cassius's face and began to cycle through anything else he could, each interval growing shorter as he went - he was her father, her mother, Malklith, Calstifer, Gambit, a Sylvan soldier, Lucifurius... Even people she had encountered and could not put a name to. Friends, comrades, accquaintances, enemies, passers-by.

Fatigue was starting to creep into her muscles and she backed up, panting. Azoth finally reverted to his own face, giving a mocking laugh.

"You thought you could challenge me, a god! Look how you weaken, human... And know that your death nears. You cannot claim my power... You can barely hope to fight for it!"

Ismaire stood straight, remembering what she'd been told. _He hides in different forms, invulnerable. Only his original form can be killed._

She dashed forward, and Azoth realized, a second too late, his mistake. He tried again to change forms, but nothing remained from Ismaire's memory that he had not yet used.

With a sweep of the scythe, the blade cut through his neck.

For a moment, everything seemed to cease.

All was dark, silent.

And then Ismaire could once again hear the sounds of battle in the next room, and see the start contrast of coquelicot blood spattered over the marble floor.

She let out a breath.

She had won.


End file.
